Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm has revealed the timeline for her retirement from combat sports.
Holm, who was responsible for one of the biggest upsets in UFC history when she knocked out Ronda Rousey with a head kick at UFC 193 in November 2015, left the world’s leading MMA promotion in 2024 and has been boxing since then.
She recently fought Stephanie Han in a rematch for the MVP Boxing card this past weekend in El Paso, Texas, losing a controversial majority decision in a fight that many thought she won.
It turns out that it will be one of the final fights of her storied combat sports career.
Holly Holm Reveals Retirement Timeline
Speaking to Ariel Helwani, the 44-year-old Holm was asked how much longer she plans on competing in combat sports.
Although she is still fighting at a very high level, Holm admitted that she isn’t planning on fighting past the end of 2026, so she only has six more months of competition left in his career, unless she changes her mind.
“If I’m being really honest, I just want big fights. I’m not saying that all of them have to be title fights, but definitely a couple within the year, and then I’m done. I definitely want them to be fights that people want to see,” Holm said.
It will certainly be interesting to see who Holm does fight in the final bout or two of her combat sports career, which began all the way back in 2002 as a boxer.
She turns 45 years old in October of this year, and it looks like 45 will be the magic age for her to finally hang up her gloves.
Who Should Holly Holm Fight Next?
Holm said that she is interested in competing in both boxing and MMA, so there are potential options for her in both sports.
In either case, it feels like she will fight for MVP Boxing or MVP MMA in her next fight, as she has been competing in boxing for the Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian-led promotion the last few years.
Since they also promote MMA fights now, Holm could return to mixed martial arts for her final one or two career fights.
The fight that most combat sports fans want to see is a rematch with Ronda Rousey. Holm recently expressed interest in this bout, and Rousey did too, saying she would “clean her clock” in a rematch. But Rousey also said she’s retired once again after beating Gina Carano last month, so the rematch doesn’t seem likely to happen, unless MVP MMA throws a huge bag of money at Rousey to coax her back out of retirement again.
Speaking of Carano, that’s a fight that makes a lot of sense for Holm. They are both 44 years old, and they are both strikers who are legends of MMA. So it’s a fight that makes a lot of sense on paper, and with Carano potentially interested in one more fight, it feels like this could be the obvious matchup to make if Holm competes in MMA one more time, although they could also do it as a boxing or kickboxing match instead.
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