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Yesterday, newly-minted UFC bantamweight queen Holly Holm etched her name into the history books by knocking out the world’s most dominant female athlete.
Holm was a nine-to-one underdog with the bookies heading into her championship fight against Ronda Rousey inside Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium.
Undeterred by her dark horse status, the former pro boxer perfectly executed a stick-and-move game plan, evading a rampaging Rousey and catching her with counter punches.
If that weren’t surprising enough, ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ capped off her near-flawless performance with a perfectly timed head kick that shattered Rousey’s aura of invincibility in an instant.
“Everything that we worked on presented itself in the fight,” an emotional Holm said following the win “I haven’t spent this much time in the gym in my life. Everything we worked on happened tonight.”
In a sport that is so often defined by the reins of it’s most dominant athletes, fighters like Georges St. Pierre, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva and Fedor Emelianenko have cemented their legacies as all-time greats by being the alpha dogs of their respective divisions.
Similarly, Rousey was considered absolutely unstoppable before yesterday’s shocking loss. The former two-time Olympic judoka was unbeaten as a mixed martial artist, and taking out opponents without even breaking a sweat.
It’s the utter domination that Rousey had beautifully displayed in the past that makes her loss so shocking, and Holm the most improbable king or queen among the UFC’s nine champions.
In the sport of boxing, the gold standard of in-ring upsets is a no brainer. When 42-to-1 underdog James ‘Buster’ Douglas ended Mike Tyson’s 37 fight and five-year unbeaten streak in 1992 it was easily the most shocking outcome in the history of combat sports.
In mixed martial arts, the answer isn’t as simple, though. In the sport’s short history, there has been a handful of fights that you could argue are worthy of the distinction.
Current UFC champion Fabricio Werdum pleaded his case for the biggest ever upset in 2010 when he handed invincible Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko his first defeat in almost a decade.
Matt Serra threw his name into the hat in 2007 when he clocked the UFC’s most accomplished welterweight Georges St. Pierre with a right hook to end his first run with the 170-pound title.
Holm’s historic win yesterday falls into the same league as these classic matches.
It’s arguably the closest we’ve ever come to MMA’s version of Douglas-Tyson. Both fights were hosted in foreign countries, both featured a seemingly outclassed and overlooked challenger, and both concluded with the champ seeing stars.
Unlike Douglas though, Holm is expected to get a chance to prove her title-capturing knockout was no fluke.
While discussing future plans, UFC president Dana White confirmed that an immediate rematch between Rousey and Holm “makes a lot of sense” during the post-fight press conference at UFC 193.
The second ever UFC bantamweight queen also chimed in on the subject, agreeing that another match with Rousey is the logical next step.
“I think a rematch makes sense for sure,” Holm said. “I’ve been on the losing side of a fight (in boxing), and I wanted a rematch. I wanted to avenge my loss. With a champion like Ronda, who’s gone out of her way and gone above and beyond to do great things, absolutely, she deserves a rematch.”