Holly Holm is all set for a rematch against Raquel Pennington at UFC 243 on October 5th in Melbourne, Australia.
Holm previously fought ‘Rocky’ in her UFC debut back in 2015 and it proved to be a closer fight than some had anticipated, with Pennington only losing out to the former boxing champion by split decision.
Of course, after that Holm went on to bigger and better things, culminating in a jaw-dropping knockout victory over Ronda Rousey to win the bantamweight title, but since then she’s struggled to maintain that form and has lost five of her last seven fights.
That being said, three of those fights were title encounters against elite fighers like Amanda Nunes, Cris Cyborg and Miesha Tate, while another of those losses came against future flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, so her level of competition has been consistently high.
As for Pennington, even though she narrowly lost to Holm, her strong performance proved to be a springboard and after winning her next four fights in a row against the likes of Jessica Andrade, Bethe Correia, Elizabeth Phillips and Miesha Tate led to her landing a title shot last year.
However, Pennington would then lose out by TKO in the fifth round against Amanda Nunes and then suffered a decision loss to Germaine de Randamie, though she recently got back to winning ways with a split decision over Irena Aldana.
Holm vs. Pennington joins a UFC 243 card that will be headlined by a middleweight title fight between Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya.
