Kevin Holland was understandably upset with the outcome of his fight at UFC 279 where he lost in lopsided fashion to Khamzat Chimaev in the co-main event.
The fight ended without Holland landing a single strike as Chimaev shot for a takedown in the opening exchange before locking on a D’arce choke to get the submission. While he accepted the matchup against Chimaev on just 24 hours’ notice due to multiple changes in the card being made at the last minute, Holland still gave credit to the undefeated Chechen for his performance, although he still had to take a dig at how the fight played out.
“Guys, I lost an amazing grappling match last night — I mean fight, my bad,” Holland said on Instagram. “Chimaev is one hell of an athlete. Still going to be talking s*** cause you know who I am.”
The loss stopped Holland’s two-fight win streak since moving to welterweight after he looked better than ever in performances over Alex Oliveira and Tim Means.
Originally, Holland was scheduled to face Daniel Rodriguez in a 180-pound catchweight bout, which came together just weeks before the event was scheduled to take place. Rodriguez ended up earning a split decision win over Li Jingliang in a razor-close fight on Saturday.
Now as he looks to wash the bad taste of defeat out of his mouth, Holland would love the chance to book at least one more fight before 2022 is over with hopes that he could a more favorable matchup than taking on a dominant grappler like Chimaev on ultra-short notice.
“Hate to end the year like this so I’d love to go in there against a striker,” Holland said. “I don’t know if I’m still deserving of a ‘Wonderboy’ [Stephen Thompson] fight. I’d love a ‘Wonderboy’ fight and if not a ‘Wonderboy’ fight, D-Rod [Daniel Rodriguez], we were all the way on task to getting it done. We had to switch it up to save the card.
“Maybe we can get something nice and get it going and collect another check before the end of the year.”
Holland has said numerous times in the past that he likes to keep a very active schedule and it appears that attitude isn’t changing just because he suffered a setback at UFC 279.
