Holly Holm will allow her team to meet with Dana White while she stays home to train
It didn't take long after Thursday's media session with UFC president Dana White to end before Holly Holm's phone and Twitter started blowing up with questions. White confirmed that he was meeting with Holm this weekend during the UFC 171 festivities in Dallas with the obvious goal of signing the former boxing champion to a contract to compete inside the Octagon.
Holm has long been a prize acquisition for the women's division ever since she decided to forgo her boxing career and focus solely on MMA. It also doesn't hurt that she's undefeated as a fighter and trains daily alongside several top UFC fighters including light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and UFC 171 co-main event welterweight Carlos Condit.
While Holm did confirm that the meeting is scheduled to take place this weekend, she personally will not attend the get together to actually go face to face with the UFC president. With a fight already scheduled for April 4, Holm doesn't want to get distracted and disturb her daily routine so she's allowing her management team to handle the negotiations with the UFC and she'll hear about the results over the phone when it's finished.
"My team is meeting with Dana. I am not going personally, I'm going to kind of let my team go out for me and work all the kinks out," Holm told FOX Sports on Thursday evening. "I don't like to get too involved in negotiation type stuff. I just like to train and focus and really right now there's so much hype and so much talk about me going to the UFC and the meeting and everything like that, there's just a lot of hype and a lot of talk and I don't want to get distracted. I still have April in front of me.
"To be completely honest with you, I'm going to train in the morning, I'm not going to go to Dallas and I have a family reunion that I'm going to drive to about five hours away from here. I'm going to go for runs and do what I can out there, but I try to keep grounded and family's first."
There is no denying an excitement in Holm's voice whenever the UFC comes up because when she decided to move on from her boxing career and only compete in MMA, she had goals of being the best in the world in a very short period of time. At 32 years of age, Holm isn't past her prime by any means, but she understands that the window to become champion in the UFC won't happen with a slow and easy approach.
While some might say that Holm's 6-0 record is impressive, it's also easy to point out that the combined record of her opponents thus far is 23-26, but that obviously doesn't mean her talent isn't on par with the women already competing in the UFC bantamweight division. When you also account for Holm's 33-2-3 record in boxing while also holding a multitude of titles, she's got the experience to step foot in the Octagon right now.
Holm believes that she's ready to face anyone in the UFC including champion Ronda Rousey. Actually she's not ready to face them -- Holm says she's prepared to beat them.
"I'm going to say yes and I'll tell you why," Holm answered when asked about facing and defeating the top UFC fighters right now. "Because if you don't believe in yourself, then you've already lost the fight and I want to be ready for whatever. When I get in there it doesn't really matter who it is, but I do know it's just another woman and you have to remember that being a fighter, that the other person is just another human just like you are and they can be beat."
Right now, Holm tries not to let the excitement about a possible UFC deal overwhelm her thoughts or training because there's one major roadblock still standing in her way before an Octagon debut can even be contemplated.
Holm is scheduled to face Juliana Werner at Legacy Fighting Championships on April 4 in her home state of New Mexico. She'd love to think about this meeting going well over the weekend and then signing to fight in the UFC soon after, but none of that may matter if she's not successful in her next fight.
"With all this hype comes the expectation of me to do well and to perform and that's when it really comes down to me, because nobody can fight for me. It can help me get to the fight, but when you get to the fight, you're in there by yourself. You're in there fighting and nobody can do it for you," Holm said.
"I hate to have this whole meeting this weekend and then not do well April 4. Then what? So one step at a time."
