At 40 years old and competing for the first time in 19 months, Holly Holm entered UFC Fight Night 206 still with aspirations of reclaiming the bantamweight title. But after her bout with top contender Ketlen Vieira, it’s back to the drawing board.
Holm went the distance with Vieira on Saturday in the main event at the UFC Apex, dropping a close split decision to Vieira. The judges scored the fight 47-48 and 48-47 twice for Vieira, who was emotional and perhaps thankful to escape with a win – because even her coaches told her she was down 3-1 heading into the fifth round.
Holm, on the other hand, left no room for interpretation as to how she felt about the outcome.
“I thought I won the fight,” Holm told Daniel Cormier in her post-fight interview. “I gave her Round 2, and I feel like I won all the rest of the rounds. I always feel like I can do more and be more perfect, but I thought I won the fight. I don’t feel like it was a question.”
The second round was when Vieira almost finished the fight with a standing rear-naked choke that Holm, whose face turned purple, managed to wiggle out of. Aside from that big spot, both fighters had their moments standing, while Holm controlled clinch time against the cage but hardly did anything with it.
Ultimately, the judges scored each round the same except for the third, which proved to be the decider.
“I think more we were worried about her trips and stuff, and I was able to kind of shut them down,” Holm said. “I wanted to obviously be more active in the clinch. She made that a little difficult because she’s got a pretty good whizzer and everything. But I was still able to control her in those areas and get some strikes off.”
A victory would’ve put her in top position to fight the winner of champion Juliana Pena and Amanda Nunes, who headline UFC 270 in a rematch July 30. Holm, held the 135-pound title for only 111 days after knocking out Ronda Rousey in November 2015, is left to regroup after having a her two-fight winning streak snapped.
“Well, I feel like I won the fight, so I’ve got to figure out what’s gonna happen now,” Holm said. “One step forward or one step back is how that usually goes. It’s what happens.”
Holly Holm: ‘I don’t feel like it was a question’ that I beat Ketlen Vieira at UFC Fight Night 206
