Coach Wants Another Title Shot For Holly Holm After UFC Fight Night 111
Former UFC bantamweight champion Holly Holm is riding a three-fight losing streak, but she’ll make her return to action in the main event of this weekend’s (June 17, 2017) UFC Fight Night 111 when she takes on former 135-pound title challenger Bethe Correia in Singapore.
Holm has certainly hit some rough times, but her coach, Mike Winklejohn, recently said that it’s ’50-50 sometimes in these big fights’:
“Holly has lost three fights in a row, but here is the deal: She lost to the world champion that beat her for her world title, she lost to Valentina who is fighting for the world title, and she lost to Germaine in a world title fight,” Winkeljohn told The MMA Hour. “It sucks, but at that level it’s 50-50 sometimes in these big fights.”
Winklejohn is referring to losses suffered against Miesha Tate at UFC 196, Valentina Shevchenko at UFC on FOX 20 and Germaine de Randamie at UFC 208 earlier this year.
Despite the recent losing streak, Winklejohn doesn’t see Holm’s bout with Correia as ‘do or die’, but rather simply as ‘do’, as he appears to be quite confident in “The Preacher’s Daughter”:
“If she was to lose this fight it actually could be ‘die’. I would never see Holly retiring on a loss, and she’s not going to lose,” he said. “So it’s not do-or-die, it’s just a ‘do’ situation, honestly.”
“It would be there if we were doing a hypothetical thing and if I thought she could actually lose, but I just don’t see Holly losing,” he continued. “She’s looking really good, got a really good gameplan and great people helping her out.”
Most recently competing at 145 pounds in a title fight with de Randamie, Holm will be making her return to bantamweight in Singapore, but she could fight at either weight in the future. In fact, Winklejohn expects Holm to come out on top against the “Pitbull” before earning a title shot at bantamweight or at featherweight:
“After this fight that we have to get through this first, I don’t want to talk about, but after this fight I want a world title shot, that’s what I want. The winner at 135 or a world title shot at… I have no idea what’s going at 145 pounds, but that would be it.”
What do you make of Winkeljohn’s comments?
