Greg Jackson’s MMA striking coach Mike Winkeljohn believes it won’t be too long before one of his top students, undefeated prospect Holly Holm, signs with the UFC.
For the time being, though, Winkeljohn believes the money still isn’t right, according to an interview with Submission Radio on Easter Sunday.
The UFC is where we want to be, and the numbers have come up behind the scenes, there’s no doubt about it … We’re trying to work something out right now, and I definitely see Holly signing with the UFC. World Series of Fighting has offered her more money. A lot of people have started to offer her more money, that I’ll let her manager talk about. All the numbers have—basically a little bidding war has begun, and we’re quite excited about it, but we, we want the UFC.
Holm, a three-division boxing champion, boasts an undefeated record inside the cage (7-0, six finishes) in her brief three-year career.
Three of her past four fights have been contested under the Texas-based promotion Legacy Fighting Championships, where she captured the inaugural women’s bantamweight championship earlier this month.
Last month, UFC president Dana White told UFC Tonight, per Yahoo! Sports, that he couldn’t stand negotiating with Holm‘s manager and was no longer interested in signing her as a result.
Back in December, Lenny Fresquez told Sherdog that his star client wanted “six figures” to fight UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey off the bat.
Interestingly, Winkeljohn disagrees in part, stating in the Submission Radio interview that “now’s not the time” for Rousey vs. Holm since he’d like to see her compete in “a couple more tune-up fights” first.
Does Holm deserve a lucrative contract from the UFC right now, or does she need to prove herself against some more established competition in the cage first?
John Heinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA editor for eDraft.com.
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