I watched UFC 193 live, and I can still see the second round. Ronda Rousey came forward the way she always did. Holly Holm stepped back, took the angle, and a minute into the round put her left shin across Rousey’s jaw. Holly Holm had just ended the most dominant run in women’s MMA, and she had done it with a kick most of the audience did not see coming.
I have followed the UFC since the first event in Denver in 1993, and I have seen a lot of upsets. Few of them changed as much as that one. What most people still do not know is that the kick was not the start of Holm’s story. By the night she beat Rousey, she had already spent a decade as one of the best female boxers in the world. And when the UFC chapter ended, she went back to boxing in her forties.
The Preacher’s Daughter From Albuquerque
Holly Holm was born on October 17, 1981, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the youngest of three children, according to ESPN. Her father, Roger Holm, preaches at a Church of Christ in Albuquerque, which is where the nickname comes from. “My father has been a preacher for the Church of Christ for my entire life,” she says on her UFC profile. Faith was not a marketing angle. “I went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night,” she told KOAT-TV, as Christian Today reported in 2015.
She did not grow up in a fight gym. She found one through an aerobics class. Her instructor, Mike Winkeljohn, also coached kickboxing, and Holm followed him from cardio work to the real thing. She won a national amateur kickboxing title in 2001 and turned professional in 2002. Winkeljohn has been in her corner ever since, at the gym now known as Jackson Wink MMA in Albuquerque.
That detail matters more than it sounds. A lot of fighters arrive at a striking coach with a decade of bad habits. Holm arrived with none, and Winkeljohn built her from the ground up. You can see it in how she moves: long, upright, patient, always at the edge of her opponent’s range.
A Boxing Champion First
Holm’s first professional boxing career ran from 2002 to 2013. She finished it at 33-2-3, with world titles in three weight classes. CBS Sports lists them as junior welterweight, welterweight, and junior middleweight, and says she defended her championships 18 times. Ring Magazine named her its Female Fighter of the Year in 2005 and 2006, ESPN noted.
The win that announced her came in September 2005, when she beat Christy Martin, one of the biggest names in women’s boxing, by unanimous decision over ten rounds in Albuquerque.
The worst night came in December 2011, when Anne Sophie Mathis stopped her in the seventh round in front of her home crowd. Seven months later Holm beat Mathis by decision and took her title back.
That rematch says a great deal about her. Plenty of fighters never recover from being stopped at home. Holm went straight back to the same opponent.
Source: Mike Jackson, CC SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
In April 2013, Sports Illustrated called her the world’s No. 1-rated female boxer. In December 2021 she was named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame’s class of 2022, alongside Roy Jones Jr. and Miguel Cotto.
Why a Boxing Champion Moved to MMA
Holm had already started fighting in MMA before she left boxing. Her debut came on March 4, 2011, outside the UFC, against Christina Domke, a TKO from leg kicks in the second round, according to Sherdog. She fought her last boxing match in 2013 and moved to MMA full time.
Her explanation was simple. “I always said that I’m only going to fight as long as I’m passionate about it,” she told UFC.com before her UFC debut. Two years earlier she had put it another way: “I sleep good at night knowing that I’ve challenged myself over my career rather than just take what’s supposed to be easy,” she told Sports Illustrated.
From where I sit, the timing made sense too. The UFC had just opened its doors to women in 2013, and Rousey had turned the women’s bantamweight division into one of the biggest draws in the sport. A world-class striker with a kickboxing base and a decade of championship rounds was exactly the kind of fighter the division had not yet seen. Holm debuted at UFC 184 on February 28, 2015, beating Raquel Pennington by split decision. She beat Marion Reneau by decision in San Diego that July, and four months later she fought for the title.
Holly Holm vs Ronda Rousey
UFC 193 was held at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne on November 15, 2015, local time. It drew 56,214 fans, a UFC attendance record. Rousey was undefeated, and the betting market gave Holm almost no chance: Sherdog’s odds roundup had her anywhere from +450 to +700.
The fight was not close. Holm kept her distance, met Rousey’s rushes with straight lefts, and made her chase. Early in the second round, as Rousey came forward again, Holm turned her hips over and the left head kick landed. A few punches followed, and the referee stopped it at 1:00 of the second round. Holm was the new UFC women’s bantamweight champion.
She had planned for it. “I visualized that if the head kick was there to go for it,” she said afterward, as Fox Sports reported. “We didn’t want to go out of our way searching for it and force it.” She also admitted what it cost her: “This fight was a lot for me mentally, I can’t tell you how many times I cried in the gym leading up to this fight.”
Her coaches saw it differently. “We knew we were fighting Ronda Rousey one day, so Holly never wanted to show all her cards,” Winkeljohn told ESPN that night. “She still hasn’t shown all of her cards after tonight.” Greg Jackson called the whole fight “a math problem”.
One small business bet on that math too. Kortney Olson’s new clothing brand, GRRRL, spent its entire marketing budget on a platinum sponsorship of Holm for that fight. The story of that gamble, and of the woman behind it, is in our profile of Kortney Olson.
What I still think about is the kick itself. It was not a spinning technique or a flashy jump. It was a plain left roundhouse, thrown at the right moment from the right distance, the kind every striking art teaches in the first year. If you want to see why the roundhouse is still the most useful kick in martial arts, watch that round again.
The Title Fights After Rousey
Holm lost the belt in her first defense. At UFC 196 on March 5, 2016, Miesha Tate took her back in the fifth round and finished her with a rear-naked choke at 3:31, according to the UFC. It was the first of several fights in which a grappler found a way to get hold of her.
She fought for UFC gold three more times:
In between, she lost a five-round main event to Valentina Shevchenko in July 2016, knocked out Bethe Correia with a head kick in Singapore in June 2017, and outpointed Megan Anderson at UFC 225 in June 2018. Every one of her title-era losses came against a champion or a future champion. That is the context people miss when they look at her record and see seven losses.
After Nunes, Holm kept fighting top bantamweights for five more years. She beat Raquel Pennington again at UFC 246 in January 2020 and outpointed Irene Aldana over five rounds that October. She lost a split decision to Ketlen Vieira in May 2022, then beat Yana Santos in March 2023. Her loss to Mayra Bueno Silva in July 2023 was overturned to a no contest after Bueno Silva failed a drug test. Her last UFC fight was against Kayla Harrison at UFC 300 in April 2024, a second-round submission loss. In January 2025 she left the UFC; Cageside Press reported that the release came at her own request.
Holly Holm’s Record
The UFC lists Holm’s professional MMA record as 15 wins and 7 losses, on her UFC.com profile, with her 2023 fight against Bueno Silva overturned to a no contest. Eight of the wins came by knockout or TKO and seven by decision. She has never won by submission. Sixteen of those fights were in the UFC, where she went 8-7 with the one no contest. All seven of her losses came there, and she was unbeaten in her seven fights before it.
Her professional boxing record stood at 34 wins, 4 losses, and 3 draws, with 9 knockouts, after her most recent bout in May 2026, according to ESPN.
The UFC lists her at 5 feet 8 inches with a 69-inch reach. She fought at bantamweight (135 pounds) for most of her MMA career and at featherweight (145 pounds) for two of her title fights. In boxing she won titles at 140, 147, and 154 pounds, and in her second boxing career she has fought at lightweight, 135. Away from the ring she has been married to Jeff Kirkpatrick since April 2012.
Back to Boxing in Her Forties
Most fighters retire when the UFC lets them go. Holm signed with Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions in May 2025. “I’m eager to pursue a fourth title in a new division,” she told ESPN.
On June 28, 2025, twelve years after her last boxing match, she beat the unbeaten Yolanda Vega by unanimous decision, 100-90 on all three cards. Two shots at Stephanie Han’s WBA lightweight title followed. In January 2026 in San Juan she lost a technical decision after a clash of heads stopped the fight in the seventh round. In the May 2026 rematch in El Paso, Han kept the belt by majority decision, 96-94, 96-94, 95-95. Somewhere in between, Holm also tried freestyle wrestling, losing a close 9-7 match at the first Real American Freestyle event in 2025.
What Keeps Her Fighting
I spent years teaching myself strength and conditioning and testing it on my own body, so the question I always ask about a fighter like Holm is not how she wins but how she lasts. The answers her team has given are not exotic.
She has done strength work almost every day since 2013, and Winkeljohn credits it for the extra power in her hands, the Albuquerque Journal reported in 2025. The same report said her team limits how hard and how often she takes shots to the head in training. “She’s in better shape than 99.999 percent of the fighters out there,” Winkeljohn said.
Her diet is just as plain. “I still eat fat, carbs, protein and I just make sure to stay active,” she said in a 2024 interview, getting stricter only as a fight gets close. And she has never been a big weight cutter. Asked about dropping a division, she once told The MMA Hour, as Sherdog reported, “if somebody was to tell me I’ve got to go to 125, I couldn’t make 125.”
None of that is a secret. It is the boring stuff: lift, protect your head in sparring, eat like an adult, stay close to your fighting weight. If you want the full case for why fighters who cut hard pay for it, our guide to UFC weight classes covers the research. Holm is what the other side of that argument looks like.
Is Holly Holm Still Fighting?
As of late October 2026, Holm has not announced a retirement or a next fight. The UFC lists her as not fighting. After the May 2026 loss to Han, she told the Albuquerque Journal, “I’m open to anything, because I love both sports.” A year earlier she had made the rule clear: “You guys will know when I retire, because it will come from my mouth.”
My Final Word
I have watched a lot of champions since UFC 1, and the ones I respect most are not always the ones with the best records. Holly Holm lost seven times in MMA, most of them to champions, and she never once ducked anyone.
She beat the most dominant fighter of her era with a basic kick and a plan, lost the belt in her next fight, and kept showing up for ten more years in two sports. That is a career built on the thing she said at the start: fight only as long as you are passionate about it, and challenge yourself instead of taking what is easy.
Where were you when Holm’s left shin met Rousey’s jaw? Swap stories with fighters and fans who watched it live, and find out which of her fights they would show a young striker first →
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Holly Holm’s record?
The UFC lists Holly Holm’s professional MMA record as 15-7, with eight wins by knockout or TKO and a 2023 loss overturned to a no contest. Her professional boxing record is 34-4-3 with 9 knockouts after her May 2026 bout. She won world boxing titles in three weight classes before moving to MMA.
How did Holly Holm beat Ronda Rousey?
Holm knocked Rousey out with a left head kick and follow-up punches, stopped at 1:00 of the second round, at UFC 193 in Melbourne in November 2015. She kept Rousey at range through the first round, then landed the kick as Rousey came forward. The win made Holm the UFC women’s bantamweight champion.
Is Holly Holm still fighting?
As of late 2026, Holm has not retired and has not announced her next fight. She left the UFC in January 2025 and returned to professional boxing, losing two WBA lightweight title fights to Stephanie Han in 2026. She has said she is open to both boxing and MMA.
What is Holly Holm’s boxing record?
Holm finished her first boxing career, from 2002 to 2013, at 33-2-3 with world titles at 140, 147, and 154 pounds. After returning in 2025 she won one fight and lost two, bringing her record to 34-4-3 with 9 knockouts.
How tall is Holly Holm?
The UFC lists Holly Holm at 5 feet 8 inches with a 69-inch reach. She fought mostly at bantamweight, 135 pounds, in MMA.
Who is Holly Holm’s husband?
Holly Holm married Jeff Kirkpatrick on April 27, 2012, according to ESPN. She was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on October 17, 1981, and still trains there at Jackson Wink MMA.
