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Holly Holm calls for rematch with Germaine de Randamie after controversial decision
When UFC 208 came to a close, Germaine de Randamie was crowned the first women's featherweight champion in promotion history much to the chagrin of her opponent Holly Holm.
The two new 145-pounders battled back and forth over 25 minutes, but ultimately it was de Randamie who edged out a decision over Holm, who dropped her third straight bout since beating Ronda Rousey in 2015.
After the fight was over, Holm felt like she did enough over at least three rounds to earn the victory, although she was critical of her performance after not pulling the trigger at certain moment to take advantage of de Randamie in a prone position.
"I felt like she started a little strong and I thought I had the better of her the last three rounds," Holm said at the post fight press conference. "I had her dropped twice. I know what my capabilities are, I didn't do as much damage as I wanted to do when I had her on the cage. But as far as controlling the pace and controlling the fight, so yeah the fight could have gone either way.
"I felt like I had three rounds. I also had her rocked twice and didn't capitalize on it and that's my own fault."
Holm also had reason to complain after de Randamie twice hit her after the horn sounded to signify the end of round.
The first punch that came at the end of the second round saw de Randamie slug Holm with one of the hardest shots she landed all night as the former women's bantamweight champion was clearly staggered afterwards.
The second set of punches came at the tail end of the third round when Holm had de Randamie hurt with a head kick, but the former kickboxing champion fired back with a combination of her own that ended with a flurry after the horn once again.
Obviously, Holm takes responsibility for not defending herself in those moments but at the same time believes de Randamie should have been penalized for the infraction yet the referee did nothing more than warn her after the second offense.
"A lot of times with the first one they give a warning. That's kind of normal. I wouldn’t expect them to take a point after the first one, even though it was intentional. Then the second time, you'd think at that point they'd do something but I'm one of those people that feels I should not have let her done it anyway. Yes, it's after the bell, I heard the bell, I stopped. It wasn't like the last punch of a combination when the bell rang. Like it was intentional, it was after the bell," Holm said. "Those were some of her best shots of the whole night after the bell and I don't know how the judges saw that.
"If they see that as points for her then what can you do? It's like I should have kept fighting, too."
Given all the circumstances surrounding the fight, not to mention how it ended with a razor thin decision, Holm would like nothing more than to get a second shot at de Randamie in the near future to declare a definite winner.
"I think it warrants a rematch," Holm said. "When you have more than half the people saying that the fight should have gone the other way, usually that warrants a rematch. So that would be awesome."
If de Randamie doesn't end up being Holm's next opponent, she sounds willing to take any and all challengers the UFC could throw at her, especially considering that she's coming off three straight losses with two of them in title fights.
"I'm sitting in a spot where my last fights I'm 0-3," Holm said. "I'm going to take whatever they'll give me."
