With the dust yet to settle on last night’s UFC 193 record-breaking event in Australia it’s too early to safe for sure what comes next for Ronda Rousey and Holly Holm, but the early signs are that a rematch will be next.
If things had gone according as expected last night then a Rousey victory was almost certain to lead to a long-awaited showdown with Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino at UFC 200 in July of 2016, but Holm’s total domination of ‘Rowdy’, which resulted in a head kick knockout early in the second round threw a huge spanner in the works, leaves a rematch as the preferred option in Dana White’s eyes.
“The rematch makes a lot of sense,” White told the media backstage. “I think the rematch is what people would want to see.”
The UFC’s newly crowned bantamweight champion Holm agreed wholeheartedly with that assessment.
“I think a rematch makes sense for sure,” Holm said at the post-fight presser. “I’ve been on the losing side of a fight, and I wanted the rematch, I wanted to avenge my loss. With a champion like Ronda who has gone out of her way – above and beyond – to do great things, absolutely, she deserves a rematch. I don’t look at this belt and think I’ve made it. I think I still have things that I need to do.
“I think a rematch – that’s just kind of unspoken, just common sense to me, I guess.”
The big unknown here though is how Rousey feels about it. At this stage we don’t know as she hasn’t spoken out publicly since the fight, missing both the in-Octagon post-fight interview and press conference due to being taken to the hospital to be treated due to a split lip sustained in the course of her stunning defeat.
Rousey has become a millionaire in a short space of time and now has several Hollywood movies lined up, including ‘Mile 22’ with Mark Whalberg which starts filming in early 2016, so this is undoubtedly a pivotal moment for the 28 year-old and it’ll be fascinating to see whether this humbling loss will fuel her natural competitive instincts to return and avenge the only loss of her career, or lead her to the conclusion that it’s time to move on from the sport.
