ANAHEIM, California – Entering the International Boxing Hall of Fame is usually the close of a chapter, but just as eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao has been lured back to the ring for a fight next month, so has former three-division boxing and ex-UFC women’s champion Holly Holm.
Holm, 43, will meet Mexico’s unbeaten Yolanda Guadalupe Vega Ochoa, 10-0 (1 KO), in a lightweight bout on Saturday’s DAZN pay-per-view card headlined by Jake Paul’s cruiserweight bout against Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr.
It will be Holm’s first pro boxing match since 2013, when she opted to leave the sport and pursue mixed martial arts, ultimately staging the most significant victory in women’s UFC action ever by knocking out Ronda Rousey to capture the bantamweight championship.
Following her class of 2022 induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, honoring a 33-2-3 career with nine knockouts, Holm decided earlier this year to get out of her UFC contract and return to boxing, joining Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions.
On July 11, the promotion will stage an all-women’s card headlined by Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano III for Taylor’s undisputed 140lbs title.
“Have this fight, get ranked again and then go for the big fight … the Taylor-Serrano fight; those are the top two fighting now. Those are the girls I want to fight, the best in the world,” Holm told reporters at a news conference following her public workout.
Making the mental turn from a Hall of Fame ceremony to reactivating as a championship-worthy boxer is not for the faint-hearted.
“You can play mind games however you want to. To have already been acknowledged as one of the best in the world was a humbling, very exciting experience for me, and I remind myself there was a reason I was inducted, because this is what I do,” Holm said.
“I hate the nerves leading up to it. Every fight, it’s, ‘Why do I do this?’ That’s what makes the wins so great. You go through such a big challenge. People don’t understand what that’s like. We’re doing things that others can’t even fathom. How you feel leading up to it, after a victory – nothing has as much nerves, anxiety or excitement as this. That’s what I love about it. You’re feeling alive. I love that.
“So to be in the Hall of Fame and come back and win would be huge.”
In a climate where heavyweight titleholder Claressa Shields, Taylor and likely returning UFC champion Amanda Nunes have been pointed to as the “GWOAT,” Holm said, while “I respect all the names … I’m the only woman to hold world titles in multiple combat sports.
“I know I’m elite, but I still have a lot to prove.”
Her return to boxing happens after she and Serrano devoted so many years trying to lift their sport to the level where it currently resides.
And much of the credit for the more lucrative purses and main-event treatment is thanks to the several high-profile UFC bouts Holm fought in -- versus Rousey, Nunes, Miesha Tate and Cris Cyborg among others.
“MMA gave it a platform that made boxing stop and think, ‘We should give women on cards, too,’” Holm said. “It’s still a fighting sport people love to watch – the unknown, the unpredictable.”
Holm admits that while there have been moments in her boxing sparring that she thinks, “I wish I could kick here,” she couldn’t deny the interest to return to the sport that first made her.
“When I first started [boxing], I had a lot of hate because the people I was fighting were fighting for their life, their families, and they came from rough times, [while] I had a great childhood, was able to play sports. I had all the love and support from my family,” said Holm, the daughter of a preacher. “There were people who didn’t want to see me win [even though] I’ve had plenty of struggles myself. I wasn’t the story everyone wanted. But I gained fans through my hard work, organically, by showing them what I was made of.
“When I left boxing, people said I was taking the easy route. ‘Easy route? I’ve got to learn everything new.’”
As its 10-year anniversary looms November 14, the Rousey fight in Australia came as the confident Southern Californian champion had compiled a string of first-round armbar submissions.
Against New Mexico’s Holm, Rousey opted to remain in a stand-up pose and was routinely beaten to the punch by the former boxing champion before a thunderous head kick from Holm set up the stunning finish.
Rousey fought once more, was battered and finished by Nunes and never fought in the UFC again.
And she hasn’t spoken to Holm since.
“I’ve never had a problem [with Rousey],” Holm told BoxingScene. “It was a fight. It’s you or them. If it was up to her, she’d do the same thing to me, and that’s all there is to it.
“I have respect [for] everyone I’ve stepped in there with, but I’ve never had a conversation with her outside of fighting. I hope she’s well. I hope she’s happy. I hope she’s happy with her family. If I sat down with her, I’d have no issue. But I don’t know if the feeling is mutual or not.”
Moving on to the challenge of Vega Ochoa, Holm said, “She’s going to be really tough. She’ll come with everything she’s got.”
A fighter to the core, Holm wouldn’t want it any other way.
“I definitely think about [what’s next] because the only way to get there is to see what’s in front of you … the goals in front of me are the ones I’m focused on the most,” she said. “I’ve always been about, ‘Follow your path, Holly. Follow your passion.’ I just want to go in and win.”
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
