Holly Holm was a world champion boxer before she moved into MMA, and she talks about some of the major difference between the sports surrounding all the Floyd Mayweather-UFC talk.
The latest Floyd Mayweather Jr. saga appears to be over for now. After saying he could “make a billion dollars” by fighting in the UFC, and UFC president Dana White confirming talks with him, Floyd shut down all that talk yesterday. He said that his initial statement was misconstrued, and while he could make a bunch of cash in the UFC, he has no intention to do so.
The person that probably has the best perspective on the transition between boxing and MMA would be UFC 219’s Holly Holm. Holm, who is fighting Cris Cyborg for the UFC women’s featherweight title next weekend, was a world champion boxer before she decided to try out mixed martial arts. In an interview with TMZ, she talked about some of the differences Mayweather would encounter if he chose to make the move as well:
“It is a whole different world in MMA. I think one of the biggest things that I tell people was the hardest going from boxing to MMA is, kind of that inside boxing. You’d get comfortable sitting in the pocket wanting to throw punches, and you’d have this other person coming at you and just clinches onto you. In boxing you clinch a bit and the ref breaks you up, but in MMA (if) they clinch you, they take you down.
“So it doesn’t mean that he can’t learn it. But it’s going to be a whole different gameplan from what he’s doing in his boxing career. But I don’t put it past anybody to be able to do the transition.”
She also talked about using the shoulder roll defense in boxing (a Mayweather special) and how it’s not very effective in MMA because your opponent can just throw a head kick behind their punches and crack you. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Holm has used head kicks to pick up some of her most famous victories.
It doesn’t look like we’ll ever see Floyd in the Octagon, but you don’t have to wait too long to see Holly. UFC 219 goes down December 30th in Las Vegas.