“Can’t Compare”: Holly Holm Suggests Her Headkick to Ronda Rousey Had Unmatched Shock Value

Following her UFC exit, Holly Holm believes no matter what she achieves next, her most notorious finish years ago at UFC 193 will never reach the same significance again.

Holm, a former UFC bantamweight champion, departed the UFC earlier this year after a loss to surging title prospect Kayla Harrison. However, despite ending a lengthy tenure with the promotion, the Albuquerque native’s career is not done yet. Inking a deal to remain in MMA, Holm will fight for the newly-minted GFL later this annum.

While she would have her ups and downs in the UFC that would see her scale the heights with UFC gold, it would also see her fall 7 times during her 9-year stay at the premier MMA promotion. However, nothing would ever compare to the time she would face an undefeated Ronda Rousey at UFC 193 in 2015.

Holm would challenge Rousey in Australia for bantamweight spoils in the year of her debut with only two previous fights in the promotion. Entering the grudge fight as a massive betting underdog, she would turn the world of MMA on its axis forever.

Her aggressive striking would expose Ronda’s lack of a stand-up game against an able competitor as Holm would send the champion to the canvas with a hellacious second-round knockout win.

With her victory, Holm would not bring the curtain down on a dominant reign and spring into a new era for the sport, she would also send Rousey into a spiral from which the Olympian would never recover.

On a 10-fight winning streak up until that point, Rousey would only fight once more after the loss. Unfortunately, it would be against a rising Amanda Nunes. Rousey would never fight again after this.

But as far as Holm is concerned, her victory over Rousey would remain unmatched purely because of its shock value.

“It’s such a big thing to happen,” Holm said of her win over Ronda Rousey on The HJR Podcast. “And such a shock factor. You can’t have that ever again”, she added.

“If I got another head kick [win] in the next fight it’d be awesome,” she further explained but concluded that it just won’t be the same.

“But it’s not the shock factor… Having a victory that big, it’s like, ‘Well, now what?”, she noted, reminiscing about a glorious past.

And with good reason. There has rarely been an occasion where an underdog has come out of nowhere and just defeated the promotion’s big dog and sent them down a spiral from which there was no returning.

Is Holm’s knockout of Rousey the biggest upset ever?

The only other outing that could be considered as memorable would be Julianna Pena vs. Amanda Nunes at UFC 269 in 2021.

The current bantamweight champion Pena would ride into battle as a massive +700 underdog against Nunes but manage to walk out with an unlikely submission win against the Lioness.

While it would shock the world, the long-term consequences would be far less important. Nunes would return in about 6 months’ time at UFC 277 and fight Pena again to reclaim her title. Not only would she win, the Brazilian would dominate Pena in a 5-round affair to a unanimous decision in her favour.

Similarly, way back at UFC 69 in 2007, Georges St. Pierre would find his welterweight reign put to an end by Matt Serra.

Stopping the Canadian deep into his topsy-turvy UFC run, Serra closed as a +850 betting underdog on some markets. But GSP, too, would return soon after to reclaim his title and then go on to beat the brakes of Serra at UFC 83 a year later to win via a TKO in the second round.

So, yes, it does look like nobody else has just poured water over the career of a heavily backed UFC champion like Holm has.