Although Holly Holm is undoubtledy one of the UFC’s most talked about singings in recent memory, the touted striker is yet to make her promotional debut due to a hand injury she suffered in her last fight.
While the injury is a frustrating one since it limits Holm’s ability to use her hands during training, the women’s bantamweight competitor made it clear that she is well on her way to a full recovery and has already started punching with the broken hand again.
“It feels great,” Holm told Bloodyelbow’s Ari LeVaux. “They said to not throw my hardest punches and to hold off on anything if it hurts. But as far as weight-bearing and punching, I’m good to go.
“I was kind of getting sick of just throwing kicks or just doing squats or just running, so it is good to mix it up.”
Since Holm was warned by her doctors not to punch too hard quite yet, she intends on treating her UFC debut with as much caution as her current training regimen and is trying not to get overzealous about stepping into the octagon as soon as possible.
“Nothing is set. Nothing is 100 percent. Partly we want to see how I can train first before we say yes to a specific date. I think (I’ll get cleared to train) in the next month or so. It is hard to tell but I’m hoping anyway.”
Holm may be confident in her own abilities but that does not necessarily mean she will attempt the brash tactic of calling out specific opponents to fight. She avoided that for her entire career and has no intention of starting a trend for her first octagon outing.
“I think they want to throw me in there from the beginning. I’ll never pick a fight. I’ll never say a fight that I want. Never have, not in kickboxing, boxing or MMA.”
This also means that she does not plan on making a case to fight the current champion Ronda Rousey in her promotional debut. She would prefer to have several tune-up fights to get her “feet wet” before being thrown into the deep end, particularly since she is coming off a hand injury and has not been able to train at 100 percent.
“I think I want to get my feet wet first. If they told me that’s the fight I have to take, I’d take it. I would rather take a fight before that. I think it would be silly to jump out with a broken arm and with my experience just say yes, then I would believe in myself. But I don’t think that will be the case.”
Her injury also meant that she could not practice defending Rousey’s patented armbar during her training session, which does not bode well for her chances if she is forced to face Rousey anytime soon.
“One thing about having a broken arm is you can’t work on armbar defence.”
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