Kevin Holland suffered his second defeat in the space of three weeks. And it came in pretty much similar fashion.
Holland stepped in on short notice to face Marvin Vettori in the UFC Vegas 23 headliner last night. It was 21 days after his unanimous decision defeat to Derek Brunson that saw him get dominated in the wrestling department.
However, it was the same end result as Vettori used his wrestling to win a lopsided unanimous decision. Holland notably received plenty of criticism for talking during his fight with Brunson instead of trying to avoid or negate the wrestling.
And while he deserves credit for slightly improving in the Vettori fight as he did land some big shots and took things much more seriously overall, he still doesn’t seem to value the wrestling aspect of mixed martial arts too much.
He took to social media after the fight to call for Vettori and Brunson to fight each other since they have a few things in common.
“@darrentill2 sorry I dint get the job done been a fan of your style and spirit awhile so it’s always a honor to step up if your down hope that doesn’t sound weird. Also wish you speedy recovery
@derekbrunson vs @marvinvettori next since you both hump so well…. props to you both you made me a better man but @b_allen185 is better than you both I’ll be back see you 3 little ninjas around until then I’ll be searching for some good sex partners to help me stop the humping
#sorryhomies #illbeback #induetime”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CNgSr4KpbZ3/?utm_source=ig_embed
Holland Doesn’t Plan On Major Training Changes
As for changing his training moving forward to incorporate some more wrestling? Holland was open to it — especially with learning how to stop some takedowns — but plans on having training be more or less the same.
“Can’t say too much changes,” Holland said in the post-fight show. “We’ll see what it is. I honestly don’t know. Go spend some time with DC [Daniel Cormier] for sure, work on some of that wrestling. Learn how to stop some of these takedowns. Other than that, same old same.
“I’m not going to change the fighter I am and try and become a wrestler just because all these guys want to wrestle. I like to strike, I like to bang. I just do a better job of keeping the fight on the feet and deliver some more knockouts to the people so that way, they’ll be back on the bandwagon sooner or later.”
You can watch his full reaction below:
