Defiant Holm Will Fight ‘Until The Wheels Fall Off’

Holly Holm is here to stay.

The former UFC women’s bantamweight champion, who also made a run at the 145-pound title, recently celebrated her 40th birthday but has no plans of slowing down. In fact, “The Preacher’s Daughter” — winner of two straight — plans on competing until “the wheels fall off.”

“I definitely want to go until the wheels fall off,” Holm told MMA Fighting. “Things might hurt. People are like ‘you’re going to have arthritis, you’re going to have this, you’re going to have that.’ Yeah probably but I’d rather have a healthy heart and lungs and memories with me than just my knees don’t hurt. At the end of my life I know my body’s probably going to hurt pretty bad but that’s all right because I love the memories I have.”

Holm (14-5) has not competed since capturing a unanimous decision victory over Irene Aldana at the UFC Fight Island 4 event back in Oct. 2020, thanks to a medical issue that required surgery. Despite her layoff, “The Preacher’s Daughter” is still ranked No. 2 in the 135-pound weight class.

“I’m definitely super frustrated, especially when people are like ‘are you retired?’” Holm continued. “I’m like no! Not retired! But I can see them maybe thinking that because they haven’t seen me fight. I want to show them what I’ve got and especially because my last fight, I got to show even more of my game from what had been seen before. I get excited cause I want to show more and show more and I keep running into these barriers. It’s definitely frustrating.”

Holm returns against Ketlen Vieira in the UFC Vegas 55 main event on May 21.