Why isn't Holly Holm better?

She really needs to work her whole ground game, especially on her back. For the most part, all she did against Valentina when she was on her back was try to hold her posture to get a standup. Her clinch seems to need work as well. I felt she had room for a lot more devastating knees, maybe incorporate some dirty boxing, and look for takedowns/sweeps/trips herself.

Aggression seems to be a factor as well. Well, more so offense is the better term. The only time she wasn't really waiting for the counter or throwing feints, she was clearly frustrated in the 3rd and proceeded to chase, throwing very telegraphed shots with nothing landed. Holly is a great counter striker. She really needs to go in and set up her own strikes without waiting to counter so much. she doesn't need to headhunt, but as we saw, her sitting and waiting against a superior striker who is patient will always be her undoing, just as much as her lackluster skillset on the ground.
 
NinjaNiK said:
Competitive accomplishments does not a fighter make .. but we can agree to disagree.
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LOL yes it does. World titles and accomplishments is what the sport is about. Matt Hughes was not a stand up bang your shit in type fighter. But he was a fighter, one of the greats of all time. GSP was not ever about injuring anyone, but he did beat everyone. There is not a separate section called the "Just bleed" section. One sport with one series of fighters all going for gold. They don't give out extra points for being meaner, or liking to see more blood. Did you win the fight or not?
 
aerius said:
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.
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Holly may lack the quality you are talking about, but we can't say that is what's missing in terms of her greatness. Too many examples of fighters that did not have that quality and accomplished so much. I would argue you don't need that quality.
 
chunglii said:
styles make fights
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Meisha, Valentina, and Rocky are totally dissimilar. I don't think that holds water unless she has a huge stylistic vulnerability to every style but Hondaism.
 
I dunno but I was pretty shocked with how bad her grappling was in the tate fight. She's a high level athlete who's trained full time for 5+ years and she looked not even just like a white belt but a 2 stripe white belt. She routinely made a bunch of mistakes that were just so bad. She looked completely lost on the ground.

Not too surprising she got out struck by a multiple time muay thai champ in MMA though. But I am also surprised how much trouble she has when people aren't aggressive with her. Shes one of the best female boxers ever and she looks like Matt Riddle shadow boxing air when people don't press her aggressively.
 
Maybe she should train in peru instead of that broke down American Camp. Val has beaten two girls from one of the supposed "best MMA camps in the world."

Peru is clearly the best place for MMA. I'm tired of seeing these girls waste their potential at big American gyms.
 
An unwillingness, so it would seem, to add to her style/method of attack, on top of her lack of aggression.


She lifted/slammed Ronda Rousey - the woman is a beast, but is content to kickbox-point score.


In summation - A waste of years of athletic ability and work ethic on not becoming a well-rounded, aggressive mma fighter.
 
I don't know if anything is missing TS, but the competition she's faced is pretty steep. Just goes to show that whoever can hold the belt in that division (now a days) against the likes of Tate, Nunes, Holm, Rousey (if she decides to come back), Zingano, Pena, etc. they deserved to be called the best female fighter in the world.
 
Holm has been facing the best the division has to offer. She looked good against Tate, imo. She just made very basic mistakes which cost her deeply. Not surprising, considering she's never been in that position against a much much much more competent grappler in Tate.

Against Shevchenko, that's not a huge upset either. Bullet is a straight beast on the feet. Same chick who holds wins against Joanna Champion in muay thai. Holm needs to sit on her punches and take some chances.

Has she ever trained with the Diaz bros? I seriously think she could learn something from them. Their mma boxing is phenomenal and they aren't exactly power punchers. They use that signature volume striking and cardio. Holm can do the same. Plus, the help in grappling is a given.
 
Dbreiden83080 said:
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?
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Holm was the victim of perfect takedown timing in the fifth round against Tate.

Last Saturday, she looked good in the 1st round, but she steered away from her gameplan of being a counterstriker. Just like Chuck Liddel against Rashad Evans, it didn't work out for her. It wasn't an issue of endurance or taking too much damage, because she never looked exhausted or was taking too much punishment.

In short, Holm, on Saturday, was 'off.' In both sticking with her gameplan and her timing, and allowed herself to be counter striked and outpointed on every round but the first.

Edit - Just want to add, like the commentators mentioned they have to kick her out of the gym - perhaps she is overtraining. But that's understandable after suffering her first loss and losing her title, obsessing with not losing again, lead to losing again.
 
Because the legendary world class boxer that beat Ronda was not Holly Holm but it was infact Holly Holmes! Holly Holmes is undefeated and the undisputed world champion of the world. :eek:
 
She is too scared to get countered and knocked out. Maybe she knows she cant take punches anymore like she used to.
 
Because she devoted the last 3 years of her life training to beat Ronda. And that's all she's good at.
 
Aside from the Rousey fight, she's looks very tentative in the UFC, which is frustrating to watch.
 
She was overrated after the Ronda fight and a lot of people bought into the hype.
 
Perfect analysis of Holly's game by Connor Ruebusch.

 
I think its Wink Jackson thing. To me her striking isn't elite. It looks like she uses different pad combinations in a real fight way to often. And her strikes is badly camouflaged, they don't fly of her shoulders like they should IMO.
Greg Wink has a lot of good fighters coming out of their gym, but how many elite fighters are 100% based out of their gym? Holly displays Winks philosophy on striking IMO, and Im not impressed. To little flow/dynamic and to much rehearsed patterns thats easy to read after a couple of rounds.

But what do I know, I'm not a fighter :-/
 
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