Why Holly Holm Doesn’t Deserve an Immediate Rematch

The UFC recently announced that the newly crowned women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate will face Amanda Nunes at 200 in July. There’s been some controversy over this as both Holly Holm and Miesha Tate have gone back-and-forth over this. Holly Holm and her camp believes she deserves a rematch, and they claimed that Tate turned the fight down. There are already too many immediate rematches in the sport as it is, and it’s time to move on from that notion. Tate vs. Nunes is the right call.

Holm and her team took a big risk by opting to fight Tate. From a lot of standpoints it made sense. Obviously, the big money was in a rematch with Ronda Rousey. However, Ronda Rousey still has no return date to MMA in sight after she was beaten by Holm. Holm is champion and healthy, so it makes sense for her to stay active. Tate was the top contender at bantamweight and had a four-fight winning streak. The problem for Holm and her camp is that MMA is an unscripted sport. Holm was supposed to beat and dominate Tate. And while it came down to the last round, Tate was able to walk away with a victory after submitting Holm. From a booking standpoint, Holm would’ve gone and probably gone on to face Rousey later. But just like when Holm defeated Rousey, Tate altered what the desired outcome was supposed to be.

Immediate rematches are sometimes justified if the fight result ends in a draw or a very questionable decision in a close fight. The Lyoto Machida vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua rematch made sense after Machida was given in a win for a fight everyone though Shogun won. Gray Maynard vs. Frankie Edgar III also made sense after their second fight, which was for the title, ended in a draw. The drawback is that immediate title rematches logjam the division when there are other contenders in line to fight for the title.

There wasn’t anything controversial about Holly Holm vs. Miesha Tate. Holm might have been dominating most of the fight, but she still decisively lost. She got finished. Whether she was caught or not, Tate got her to the ground, put her in a rear-naked choke, and Holm went to sleep. So since Holm took the risk of fighting Tate, she now has to get back in line and earn her title shot again. It’s not like Holm had a dominant run as champion and cleaned out her division. Tate was her first title defense, and she lost.

The next contender in line for the belt is Amanda Nunes, who is on a three-fight winning streak and is 5-1 in the UFC. Now, a rematch between Tate and Zingano for the title would also be interesting. Zingano was the one who defeated Tate when the two women made the Octagon debuts. Zingano was supposed to fight Rousey for the title and earn a spot as the coach on The Ultimate Fighter with that win. But her career got sidelined after some debilitating knee injuries, not to mention having to deal with the loss of her husband. The issue with Zingano is that her last fight was the 14-second title loss to Ronda Rousey last year. She’s been on the shelf for a while, but she is now slated to return to face Julianna Pena at UFC 200. Pena is on her own winning streak in the UFC, and if she could beat Zingano, that could also put her in the title mix. Either way, this is good. This is a growing division. Contenders are building up their resumes. So it’s better to keep this division forward than constantly fixating on immediate rematches.

Rather than moaning about not getting a rematch about Tate, Holm should be raring to get back in the cage to fight again. If she wants a rematch for the title, then she should do get one the old fashioned way by earning it. She should show everyone, me included, that she should be fighting for the title again. Undoubtedly, Holly Holm shocked the world and out-performed everyone’s expectations before Ronda Rousey. But that was still her third fight in the UFC. Before Rousey, Holm only had two dull decision wins against Marion Reneau and Raquel Pennington. Neither one of those fighters were top 10 opponents, and she still struggled with them. It’s time for Holm to prove herself against the tougher opponents in her field to earn that title shot this time.

Jeffrey Harris is 411mania’s resident Jack of All Trades and has covered MMA for the site since 2008. You can shoot him an e-mail at [email protected] or hit him up on Facebook. You can also check out the latest edition of the podcast he co-hosts alongside Robert Winfree, The 411 Ground & Pound Radio Show, HERE.