1: 19 AM ET
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Marc RaimondiESPN Workers Author
Holly Holm landed a side kick to Irene Aldana‘s face within the closing seconds, then moved forward with a laborious punching combination as she space free a loud, sustained shout.
It was the exclamation point on what was a nearly flawless performance for Holm in a unanimous resolution (50-44, 50-45, 50-45) victory within the principle event of UFC Fight Evening on Saturday night in Abu Dhabi.
Holm dominated from begin to purchase out, mixing in takedowns and ground work along with her superior boxing and kickboxing. It was arguably basically the most efficient all-around MMA performance for Holm, the dilapidated boxing champion.
“When I got right here over to MMA, I didn’t reach to be a boxer in an MMA cage, in an Octagon,” Holm acknowledged in her postfight interview. “I got right here to be a combined martial artist. And it has taken time. … I’m nonetheless very inexperienced and discovering out. I honest desire to keep all of it together.”
Holm, the dilapidated UFC females’s bantamweight champion, issued a firm reminder in opposition to Aldana. Five years after her favorite knockout of Ronda Rousey, Holm remains life like one of the well-known very easiest female MMA fighters on the earth. Holm has won two straight, her first profitable skedaddle since beating Rousey.
“There is this total nonetheless more or less pleasure coming thru, quite a lot of nonetheless skill,” Holm acknowledged. “They explain right here’s their stepping stone. And I’m now no longer gonna be that.”
In ESPN’s females’s bantamweight rankings, Aldana was No. 5 and Holm was No. 6 coming in. Holm is tied for No. 9 in ESPN’s pound-for-pound females’s MMA rankings. Though she is discontinuance to 1 other title shot — Holm misplaced to contemporary females’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes at UFC 239 on July 6, 2019 — Holm acknowledged she wasn’t thinking too far forward.
“I preserve to honest let the long term fold out,” Holm acknowledged. “I in reality contain a huge group around me that worries about that so I will honest explain.”
The event took situation with out fans at the Flash Dialogue board on Yas Island, which the UFC has dubbed “Fight Island,” the promotion’s international enclave one day of the coronavirus pandemic.
Holm dictated the fight from the gain-scurry, forcing Aldana to scramble her around the Octagon whereas Holm picked her aside with punching combos and side kicks to the body. When Aldana got too discontinuance, Holm landed takedowns — one in each spherical.
Holm’s five takedowns were a brand nonetheless occupation excessive, fixed with ESPN Stats & Files be taught.
Within the 2nd spherical, Holm wobbled Aldana with a left. She was ready to procure Aldana down within the third and gain stout mount, the build she landed elbows.
Aldana was finally ready to land a laborious correct hand on Holm within the fourth, causing blood to trickle from Holm’s nostril. But Holm was already in stout alter of the fight by then.
Within the fifth, Holm closed sturdy, doing more ruin than in any old spherical with laborious punching combos and a side kick to the face. Holm nearly carried out within the closing seconds with Aldana touching and closing a broken scrutinize.
Holm (14-5) was coming off a lackluster unanimous-resolution victory over Raquel Pennington at UFC 246 in January, and this was an announcement victory. The Albuquerque, Fresh Mexico, native has won four of her past six fights with the 2 losses coming in opposition to Nunes, the sizzling UFC females’s bantamweight and featherweight champion, and dilapidated females’s featherweight champ Cris Cyborg.
Holm, 38, is barely 4-5 since beating Rousey at UFC 193 on Nov. 15, 2015. Previous to starting MMA in 2011, Holm was a three-division boxing champion, life like one of basically the most efficient females’s boxers of her technology. This was Holm’s sixth UFC principal event, tying Rousey for basically the most headlining bouts amongst females in UFC historical past.
Aldana (12-6) had won two straight and five of her past six fights sooner than Saturday’s principal event. She grew to change into the first Mexican-born females’s fighter to headline a UFC event Saturday night. In her old fight, Aldana, 32, knocked out Ketlen Vieira within the first spherical at UFC 245 final December.
