In November of 2015, Holly Holm pulled one of the biggest upsets in UFC history when she knocked out Ronda Rousey to become the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion.
Fast forward nearly a year later, Holm is no longer the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion and is currently in the midst of a two-fight losing streak. Holm has faced her fair share of criticism for a lackluster 2016, something she talked about on The MMA Hour.
"It is annoying because a lot of people that do that, I don’t think they ever listen to all these others kind of interviews or articles or anything that come out for me. I like to fight," she said. "I don’t know why people think that I’m taking fights for money. It drives me crazy. I wanted to fight because I wanted to get in there and fight, it had nothing to do if I should have waited for this money fight or that money fight. It’s not why I fight. And, so whatever people say I guess is their own opinion that has nothing to do with what I shoot for or what my goals are. I always tell myself I’m never going to fight for money, only for passion. And I want to stay true to that. And that’s what I was doing, is fighting because I wanted to fight. That’s it."
Holm does have a plan to turns things around -- she wants to fight again in 2016.
"I’m sure we’ll schedule something in the next few weeks," she said. "I know [the UFC] probably don’t want to set something 100 percent until I’m 100 percent released to train. I think we’re getting close to figuring that out, but definitely no specific answer right now. No, I just want to fight, and I want to win," she said. "That’s my goal. That’s really as simple as I want to think. What fight it is, it really doesn’t matter to me. I want to win just as badly whether it’s on a big card or not. I want to win even if it’s not on TV. Even in practice, I still want to punch my teammates more than they hit me. That’s the name of the game. I am just focused on a victory, and that’s it."
Holm hasn't won since her UFC 193 victory over Rousey.
