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Former WBF Womens World Light
Welterweight and Welterweight
World Champion Holly Holm
is considered by many to be
among the best Pound-For-Pound
female boxers of all time.
Obviously such status will
always be up for debate, but
Holm´s magnificent
accomplishments inside the ring
are not!
“The
Preachers Daughter” was born on
October 17 1981 in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, and grew up in a
small village called Bosque
Farms. Very interested in
sports, Holm played soccer and
tried gymnastics, swimming and
diving before eventually getting
into kickboxing and boxing.
A local aerobics instructor who
was also a kickboxing trainer
saw Holm´s potential for combat
sports, and got her interested.
After eight amateur kickboxing
bouts, winning six and drawing
two, Holm amazingly decided to
turn professional, not only as a
kickboxer but also as a boxer.
She actually made her debut in
pro boxing first, beating fellow
debutant Martha Deitchman in
three rounds, on January 25 2002
in Albuquerque, and then entered
the paid kickboxing ranks on
June 1 with a second round
stoppage victory.
However, after about a year of
switching between the two
sports, Holm decided to
concentrate on boxing. She went
7-1-2 in her first ten outings,
and won her first world
championship, the IBA Light
Welterweight title, when she
scored a wide unanimous decision
over Terry Blair (5-6-1) in
December 2004.
She quickly developed a large
fan-base in New Mexico, and
would fight outside her home
state only once throughout her
entire career. All but three of
her fights were in Albuquerque,
but she almost always took on
the best available opponents.
After three successful
title-defenses, and victories
over the likes of Christy Martin
(46-3-2) and Mia St. John
(42-5-2), Holm was already among
the best female competitors in
the sport when she moved up in
weight to capture the vacant WBA
Welterweight title in June 2006.
But she soon returned to Light
Welterweight where she defended
her IBA crown with a unanimous
decision over Jane Couch (28-8)
from England, before making
another big statement in
December 2006 by going all the
way up to Super Welterweight to
add the IBA world title with a
decision over Tricia Turton
(8-1).
In March 2007 it was back to
Welterweight, where Holm won
(W10) the WBC, WBA, IFBA and
WIBA World titles against Ann
Saccurato (12-1-2). Two months
later she beat future WBF world
titlist Chevelle Hallback
(25-4-1) on points in a
non-title ten-rounder at Light
Welterweight.
She finished that year by
including the IBA World
Welterweight title to her
collection, outscoring Angelica
Martinez (6-3-1) in September.
Holm was at this point
dominating world class opponents
in three weight classes, and one
would be hard pressed to find a
foe between Lightweight and
Middleweight she would not be
favored against.
Holm racked up six successful
Welterweight title-defenses,
beating the likes of Mary Joe
Sanders (25-0), Myriam Lamare
(16-2) and Duda Yankovic (11-0),
before returning to Light
Welterweight in late 2009 with a
wide unanimous win over
Albuquerque-rival Victoria
Cisneros (3-7-2).
In March 2010 she captured the
vacant WIBA World Light
Welterweight title with another
points win over Chevelle
Hallback (27-5-2), and five
months later added the IBA title
by stopping Jaime Clampitt
(21-4-1) in the very first
stanza. She finished 2010 with a
defense of the IBA strap,
stopping former foe Ann
Saccurato (15-4-2) in eight.
2011 would be the first year
since 2003 where Holm didn’t win
a world title fight. In June she
scored a lopsided decision over
Victoria Cisneros (5-11-2)
again, before a true Super Fight
with WBF World Welterweight
Champion Anne Sophie Mathis
(25-1) from France showed that
Holm was human after all.
Holm´s unbeaten streak of
twenty-five fights, between 2004
and 2011, came to a dramatic end
when Mathis over-powered her and
brutally knocked her out on
December 2 at the Route 66
Casino in Albuquerque. It was
the kind of defeat that could
easily have ruined any fighter,
but not Holly Holm.
A rematch was arranged for June
2012, and Holm put on a
wonderful performance to redeem
herself and win the WBF World
Welterweight title with a
unanimous decision.
She returned yet again to Light
Welterweight the following
December, and won the vacant WBF
World title by out-scoring Diana
Prazak (11-1) from Australia.
After one successful defense of
that title, against Mary McGee
(20-1), Holm retired from boxing
to focus on a career in Mixed
Martial Arts.
In her professional boxing
career she compiled a 33-2-3 (9)
record, and won no less than
fourteen world titles in three
weight classes. At the time of
writing she is 9-0 in MMA, and
is lined up to fight the sports
number-one name Ronda Rousey
before the end of 2015.
Holm has to be the most
accomplished female professional
boxer the sport has ever
produced, and her greatness was
more than anything achieved by
her eagerness to fight the best
opponents possible!
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