Holly Holm said she highly doubts Ronda Rousey will ever want a rematch, but added she would always be open to fighting Rousey again as she prepared for a boxing match on Saturday.
“Yes, a lot of talk with the Ronda fight,” Holm said, acknowledging the chatter directly. Holm then laid out the split plainly: “I highly doubt she’ll ever want a rematch. I always have said since the minute the last fight was over, I’ll always rematch her. That’s always been available.”
The exchange matters because it reunites two defining moments in modern women’s combat sports. Holm knocked out Rousey at UFC 193 in November 2015 — a result widely regarded as one of the biggest upsets in MMA history — and Rousey, after a decade away from competition, returned most recently to submit Gina Carano in the main event of the first MVP MMA card in 17 seconds.
Holm, speaking ahead of her boxing match against Stephanie Han on Saturday, pushed back against any lingering animus and framed the issue as settled between them. “But she wanted to come back and have this win and go back and enjoy and have a win like that. No hate from me. I hope she does well. I hope she does whatever she wants with her life. That’s her life. I’d always be open to fight her again,” Holm said.
Those lines set up a clear tension. Holm says the door has been open since the night she stunned Rousey in November 2015; Rousey has publicly signaled a different endpoint. After returning from a 10-year hiatus to face Carano — who herself had not fought in 17 years — Rousey finished the fight in 17 seconds and then said the Carano bout would be her last, declaring she is done with competition.
Holm underscored why her 2015 win mattered so dramatically: “The whole reason why me beating her was such a big deal is because she was so dominant.” The knockout at UFC 193 ended Rousey’s run as the dominant women’s bantamweight champion and rewrote expectations about who could stop her. Holm’s perspective was measured as she reflected on the fallout for fighters who lose high-profile bouts: “You can’t judge someone [who lost like that].”
There is a business dimension that complicates any realistic path to a rematch. Holm has shifted into boxing and has signed with MVP as her boxing promoter, while Rousey’s return to the ring game came on the first MVP MMA card. That shared appearance on the same promoter’s inaugural MMA slate, and Holm’s current move into MVP-promoted boxing, places both fighters inside the same commercial ecosystem even as their public positions diverge.
The numbers are stark and fast: 17 seconds marked Rousey’s comeback finish, 10 years was the hiatus she ended to take that fight, 17 years was how long it had been since Gina Carano last competed, and November 2015 was when Holm delivered the upset at UFC 193. Those figures frame why both fighters remain central to debates about legacies and matchmaking.
Holm’s answers before Saturday were concise and candid: she recognizes the talk, she says she would take the fight, and she does not expect Rousey to want one. With Rousey having called the Carano bout her final fight and publicly saying she is done with competition, a true rematch now appears unlikely — even if Holm keeps the door open.
