Holly Holm on future: ‘In a perfect world, I’ll do both’ MMA and boxing

On Monday (Jan 13th, 2025), news came out that the UFC had voluntarily released Holly Holm after the former women’s bantamweight champion requested her release, despite still having two fights left on her contract.

It was a pretty big surprise given Holm’s status in the company. She was the one who derailed Ronda Rousey with one of the biggest head kick knockouts in MMA history. She was a UFC champion. She headlined five network Fight Night cards. And while she’s ended up a gatekeeper to title contention over the past few years, she was still ranked No. 8 at 135 pounds.

So why did Holm ask for her release? In a new interview on the Ariel Helwani MMA Show, “The Preacher’s Daughter” explained how it all went down.

“It’s been 8 months since my last fight,” Holm said. “And I know I’m not gonna fight forever, but I still want a couple more. And I had been in talks just trying to see if anything would happen, and I did want to be able to dance in the UFC octagon one more time, but it just didn’t seem like it was something that was gonna be promised.”

“I did have 2 fights left on the contract, but you know, that’s not always promised. And I didn’t wanna wait around forever either. So I wanna see what other options there are.”

Holm came over to MMA from boxing where she had an even more impressive career. She was a three division boxing champion with 18 title defenses, and Box Rec considers her pound-for-pound the 12th greatest female boxer in history. With women’s boxing on the upswing right now, will she return to the ring?

“When I box, I fought at 140, 147, and 154,” Holm said. “I never fought at 135 in boxing. So sometimes I feel like it’s unfinished business. Do I go back? And the people that have belts at that weight class are Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor. So it’s like, is that unfinished business?”

It’s certainly lucrative business, but Holm doesn’t sound done with MMA yet.

“In a perfect world, I’ll do both,” she said. “Okay, if I can’t, I would like to have another fight for MMA and another fight for boxing … I still want another head kick knockout. You can’t do that in boxing. And then I also think, man, it’d be really cool to go and fight for a a 4th weight division in boxing, so why not?”

“I think of both of those things, pretty much down the middle. But, I think my heart still leans a little more towards MMA first. I don’t know. I just wanna see see what opens.”

It seems like the UFC ran out of ideas for what to do with Holly Holm — or fighters that could get past her. We’re not sure if there’s much out there for her in the greater MMA landscape either. She could rematch Cris Cyborg, or pushing back younger fighters trying to establish themselves. But in boxing, there’s a whole slew of top women’s fighters trying to gain the spotlight, and there are few opponents out there with a name as big as Holm’s.