Why isn't Holly Holm better?

[Kahran]

Holly should be put in solitary confinement and forced to watch every Robbie Lawler and Wanderlei Silva fight on repeat, just to get an idea of what it means to put everything you have on the line, sometimes it seems like she doesn't want to make contact with her opponents. She has so much skill but sometimes lacks that aggressive/mean streak. No one is telling her to change her whole style but Robbie just said it best on the 201 Preview; "Technique and strategy and all that is important but sometimes you just have to get a little dirty".

 

[GSP_37]

There's a bit of truth in that, Jones is the best example but he's not the only one who bends the rules. Aldo & McGregor both grab fences, Silva was grabbing shorts to stop takedowns & unload on Sonnen, Joanna eye pokes almost as much as Jones, and Valentina was clinching and dumping people in kickboxing events where it was illegal to do so. Many of the best fighters are mean mofos who are happy to bend the rules & hurt their opponents.

I wasn't saying anything about cheating. I'm talking about priority #1 = beat up opponent, and if she gets hurt, she gets hurt. Like Ivan Drago from Rocky.

 

[Fraser B]

She may be the best in the world. She may be able to beat Ronda like she did the first time yet Ronda may walk through the people that has beaten Holly. Styles make fights. She was beating Miesha until the very end of the fight. Most sports are like this. Fedor and GSP are 2 of the only fighters I can think of right now who were not only the best but would probably beat everyone in their division even the bad matchups for them. With Anderson, I'd pick a prime Filho over him and Arona(if Arona went down in weight) but Anderson was still better fighters than them and the best of the best of his division.

 

[BigNuggetIce]

So she won world titles as a boxer by basically sucking at it

IIRC she mostly threw a few punches then clinched up in boxing. In mma she throws a few punches then disengages. I'm not gonna say she isn't technical, but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting when I heard a world champion boxer was transitioning to mma

 

[NinjaNiK]

She clearly is a very good athlete. She comes from a tremendous athletic and combat sports background. She has a tremendous work ethic, in fact she appears to be a gym rat. Comes from a great camp. What's missing?

A fighter's Spirit and killer instinct ... Holly is a competitor who enjoys athletic competition, but she is not a fighter imo

 

[Xuh]

Well she was world champion in MMA and boxing so I'd say she's done OK.

As for her last fight - Holly is from the USA, Valentina is from the USSR. There was nothing Holly could do to win.

 

[Dbreiden83080]

A fighter's Spirit and killer instinct ... Holly is a competitor who enjoys athletic competition, but she is not a fighter imo

Former world champ boxer and former world champ mma champion. Not a fighter?

 

[gmr7494]

Ground game needs to be improved.

 

[Conor McTap]

she was a one hit wonder no killer instinct and moves like a robot. she needs fat honda for one last payday.

 

[NinjaNiK]

Former world champ boxer and former world champ mma champion. Not a fighter?

Nope .. she's an athlete, she enjoys the hard work of training, the application of technique, scoring the points, winning the trophy/belt, the high of accomplishment .. she loves to compete. Pay closer attention and you will see that ..

But one of the things that has always set MMA apart from other forms of competitive combat was the rawness, the sense of a real fight, and the potential for real violence ... for just bleed. Holly does not have any just bleed in her ...

Holly lacks the natty grit, the meanness, and the touch of crazy that a fighter usually has. Holly doesn't have the instinct to kill, she has the desire to win ... and that is why she points fights instead of trying to fekk a bish up. Such a waste of that big, strong Amazon body imo. She has the potential to legitimately maul, but instead she is tapping bishes with the tips of her toes half the time because she either cannot accurately gauge distance, or is simply afraid to close it ... what's that about?

Ehh, not fighting ... I don't really care about her Albuquerque, New Mexico titles.

 

[Dbreiden83080]

Nope .. she's an athlete, she enjoys the hard work of training, the application of technique, scoring the points, winning the trophy/belt, the high of accomplishment .. she loves to compete. Pay closer attention and you will see that ..

But one of the things that has always set MMA apart from other forms of competitive combat was the rawness, the sense of a real fight, and the potential for real violence ... for just bleed. Holly does not have any just bleed in her ...

Holly lacks the natty grit, the meanness, and the touch of crazy that a fighter usually has. Holly doesn't have the instinct to kill, she has the desire to win ... and that is why she points fights instead of trying to fekk a bish up. Such a waste of that big, strong Amazon body imo. She has the potential to legitimately maul, but instead she is tapping bishes with the tips of her toes half the time because she either cannot accurately gauge distance, or is simply afraid to close it ... what's that about?

Ehh, not fighting ... I don't really care about her Albuquerque, New Mexico titles.

She has a fighters heart. She was done against Tate, and should have tapped out. Almost anyone else would have. She let Miesha choke her out instead. That does not sound to me like someone who lacks, a fighters spirit. I think she needs to trust herself more and her skills. But she is 100% a fighter. Far too accomplished to suggest otherwise.

 

[Enigma87]

Lack of aggression. She's supposed to be a great boxer but just spams shitty kicks all fight. She needs to take a risk once in awhile.

 

[NinjaNiK]

She has a fighters heart. She was done against Tate, and should have tapped out. Almost anyone else would have. She let Miesha choke her out instead. That does not sound to me like someone who lacks, a fighters spirit. I think she needs to trust herself more and her skills. But she is 100% a fighter. Far too accomplished to suggest otherwise.

Competitive accomplishments does not a fighter make .. but we can agree to disagree.

 

[King Joffery]

Looked like a lack of confidence in her last fight. Would not engage..

Agreed I think she got nervous in her last 2 fights, pressure was off against Ronda since she was such a big underdog, she is a much better fighter than Tate, that was definitely a case of letting than one slip rather than losing to a more talented fighter.

 

[cheezum]

she's a kickboxer/boxer. a really good one. but that's all she is.

 

[Askafan]

Nope .. she's an athlete, she enjoys the hard work of training, the application of technique, scoring the points, winning the trophy/belt, the high of accomplishment .. she loves to compete. Pay closer attention and you will see that ..

But one of the things that has always set MMA apart from other forms of competitive combat was the rawness, the sense of a real fight, and the potential for real violence ... for just bleed. Holly does not have any just bleed in her ...

Holly lacks the natty grit, the meanness, and the touch of crazy that a fighter usually has. Holly doesn't have the instinct to kill, she has the desire to win ... and that is why she points fights instead of trying to fekk a bish up. Such a waste of that big, strong Amazon body imo. She has the potential to legitimately maul, but instead she is tapping bishes with the tips of her toes half the time because she either cannot accurately gauge distance, or is simply afraid to close it ... what's that about?

Ehh, not fighting ... I don't really care about her Albuquerque, New Mexico titles.

And yet she uses those nasty oblique kicks to the knee which even Joanna refuses to train.

 

[NinjaNiK]

And yet she uses those nasty oblique kicks to the knee which even Joanna refuses to train.

But she doesn't land them with any real force/power/impact tho .. like most of her other strikes.

 

[Eater of Souls]

But she doesn't land them with any real force/power/impact tho .. like most of her other strikes.

Only things landed with power are the LHK and sometimes the left straight. Everything else, when it lands, well, she hits like she is humping a butterfly.

And her striking accuracy is not exactly great. 32% according to fightmetric. Compare to Shevchenko at 49%, for example, and we see a world of difference.

 

[aerius]

She has a fighters heart. She was done against Tate, and should have tapped out. Almost anyone else would have. She let Miesha choke her out instead. That does not sound to me like someone who lacks, a fighters spirit. I think she needs to trust herself more and her skills. But she is 100% a fighter. Far too accomplished to suggest otherwise.

I think the easiest way to describe it is comparing post-Serra GSP to someone like Robbie Lawler. No doubt that GSP has a lot of heart and was a great competitor, at least 90% of fighters would've been toast after the Condit head kick while GSP was still able to finish the round strong. And there's no way to take away from all his dominant wins. But as NinjaNIK noted, he doesn't seem to have that meanness and love of wrecking people's shit like Robbie Lawler. If you saw the post fight interviews after Condit vs. Lawler, they both wanted to have another fight and beat the shit out of each other some more, and you get the sense that they actually enjoyed the brutal war they had. You just don't get that vibe from GSP or Holm.

 

[Eater of Souls]

I think the easiest way to describe it is comparing post-Serra GSP to someone like Robbie Lawler. No doubt that GSP has a lot of heart and was a great competitor, at least 90% of fighters would've been toast after the Condit head kick while GSP was still able to finish the round strong. And there's no way to take away from all his dominant wins. But as NinjaNIK noted, he doesn't seem to have that meanness and love of wrecking people's shit like Robbie Lawler. If you saw the post fight interviews after Condit vs. Lawler, they both wanted to have another fight and beat the shit out each other some more, and you get the sense that they actually enjoyed the brutal war they had. You just don't get that vibe from GSP or Holm.

Right.

You can have all the heart in the world. Then there are some people who just glory in violence. Might not be the greatest technicians, but when you stand across from them, you know they are bringing the pain every single time.