Kevin Holland can’t seem to avoid getting on his fellow fighters’ bad side during fight week.
UFC 287 goes down this weekend (Sat., April 8, 2023) in Miami, Florida and two big Welterweight bouts have the potential to steal the show. First, Holland will be tasked with Argentina’s Santiago Ponzinibbio before Gilbert Burns battles Jorge Masvidal in the evening’s co-main event. Ahead of their fights, however, Masvidal and Holland almost came to blows in the fighter hotel. The two can be seen getting separated by security in the video embedded above.
“Let me just say it,” Holland said on Instagram after the video surfaced. “Before that video’s gonna come out, they’re probably gonna do an opponent change again.”
This incident isn’t the first outside-the-Octagon rodeo for either fighter. For Holland, in particular, before his last fight with Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson, “Trailblazer” got into a scuffle with Khamzat Chimaev on UFC 279 pre-fight press conference day in Sept. 2022. Therefore, leading to the pair eventually getting shuffled around and facing each other, following Chimaev’s large 7.5-pound miss for his scheduled 170-pound match up with Nate Diaz.
There isn’t any specific indicator as to what spawned the beef between Masvidal and Holland, but the latter hasn’t been shy to express his feelings about “Gamebred.”
“This guy sucker punches people and this guy shows up to fight,” Holland responded when asked by Burns on UFC Embedded who he thought would win, pointing at the UFC 287 poster. “This guy’s a douchebag, this guy’s a good guy. So, there you go.”
Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 287 fight card right here, starting with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET, then the remaining undercard on ESPN/ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+ PPV.
To check out the latest and greatest UFC 287: “Pereira vs. Adesanya 2” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here.