Holly Holm, Ronda Rousey Rematch Confirmed By UFC President

Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey have been getting quite a bit of media attention since Holm’s defeat of the previously unbeaten champ last month, but today’s announcement might trump them all.

UFC President Dana White says that Holm and Rousey will get a rematch, and although a date hasn’t been set, fans are already chomping at the bit to watch it go down. Of course, for many, there was never a question that a rematch had to happen — including Holly Holm herself. She said as much almost immediately after the fight, where she knocked Rousey out with a kick to the face, but it wasn’t because she was trying to kick Rousey while she was down. Holm said she knew the pain of defeat and understood that Rousey would want redemption.

“I think a rematch makes sense for sure. I’ve been on the losing side of a fight and I wanted the rematch, I wanted to avenge my loss. With a champion like Ronda – who has gone out of her way, above and beyond, to do great things – absolutely she deserves a rematch. I don’t look at this belt and think I’ve made it. I think I still have things that I need to do. I think a rematch, I think that’s kind of unspoken common sense to me,” Holm told reporters after the match.

For Dana White, pitting the two women against each other again makes sense because it might be the fight of the year.

“Me and Lorenzo Fertitta should probably lose our promoter’s license if we didn’t make that rematch. Yeah, that fight’s going to happen. I don’t know when, but that’s the fight that will happen,” White said on the Mike & Mike Show on Thursday. “Ronda Rousey has gone undefeated, taken the sport to another level, and was beating the best women in the world in 14 seconds or 30 seconds, so she deserves a rematch. Holly agrees she deserves a rematch, and we’ll figure it out.”

According to MMA Weekly, Ronda has taken time off from the sport and will be focusing on her other commitments for the next several months, so a date for the fight has yet to be set.

Rousey has taken time out of the spotlight since the fight, surfacing only once on social media directly afterward to let her fans know she was all right. However, a family photo made the rounds on the Web around Thanksgiving, showing Ronda looking healthy and happy. Meanwhile, Holly Holm has been making the rounds promoting herself and meeting fans; she shared a photo from the moment she realized she’d won the match on Instagram, saying she was still trying to process the victory.

The outcome of the fight shocked fans and announcers alike, particularly after Ronda seemingly let her temper get the best of her. The usually controlled fighter was bent for revenge after a scuffle at the weigh-in, where Holm pushed her away with a hand to the face, and many said her anger got in the way of a win.

“That was Ronda scared to death. She knew something like this was down the pipe. Ronda was trying to get her confidence back. Holly exposed Ronda, just in the realness of a fighter. And I think that that was tip, like – Holly started winning fans over here just because they know she’s just a good, down to earth person. And maybe that was Ronda’s way of trying to paint Holly in a light that gave her confidence, but it didn’t work,” Holly Holm’s father, Roger, said.

[Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images]