UFC President Dana White has confirmed that Holly Holm's next fight will be a rematch against Ronda Rousey, with a date "cleared for July 9" -- the date reserved for UFC 200 -- at the new MGM-AEG arena in Las Vegas, according to Lance Pugmire of the L.A. TIMES. Holm’s manager, Lenny Fresquez, said that he "met with UFC officials Monday and received a proposal for that fight, but expressed concerns that Rousey wouldn’t be ready following her second-round knockout loss Nov. 14 in Australia." Fresquez said that he would "like Holm to defend her belt in the interim against top-ranked contender Miesha Tate." But White sarcastically said, “We’re real concerned with his opinion" (L.A. TIMES, 12/10). ESPN's Mike Greenberg said he has "never bought a UFC fight," but he likely will buy the Holm-Rousey rematch. Greenberg: "It’s the Tiger Woods theory, right? It’s the big star brings you into the party." ESPN’s Mike Golic noted he did buy the Nov. 14 fight and said, "I’ll get this one without question. I think those that didn’t buy it may be a little more intrigued with this now. One of the reasons I think people didn’t buy it is, ‘Oh, Rousey’s going to win again in 30 seconds or 40 seconds.’” Golic added White runs the promotion "really the way he wants to run it, and he’s going to do things his way and nobody’s getting in the way." Golic: "I don’t mean that the other commissioners are not as tough or powerful, they just can’t wave the wand like Dana White can” (“Mike & Mike,” ESPN Radio, 12/10).
FAIR STRATEGY? ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said it is "incredibly unfair" not to allow Holm to fight before the July match against Rousey. Smith said, "It may be savvy on the part of Dana White because I think it elevates Ronda Rousey’s chances of coming back, which obviously is something that Dana White prefers because Ronda Rousey is still more marketable than anybody in the sport. I understand it from that perspective. It’s just one of those rare situations where I wish that, in the process of running the sport the way that you run it and forcing fights to take place, I wish that you were being more fair to Holly Holm.” ESPN’s Skip Bayless said, “I find this terribly unfair to both fighters because this underlines the fact for me that the weight of this entire sport is on one woman’s shoulder. … You're putting all the focus and all the pressure back on (Rousey) to save the day of UFC in general, the whole sport.” Smith later noted, “Dana White just texted me. He says, ‘We wouldn’t have another fight for Holly until June anyway, so it’s less than a month longer’" (“First Take,” ESPN2, 12/10).
WAITING TO CASH IN: Fresquez said that financial terms for the November fight against Rousey "were agreed to when Holm signed with the UFC in July." Asked how much Holm made on the fight, he said, “Not enough.” In Albuquerque, Rick Wright noted Holm "received $100,000 in bonus money from the UFC -- Fight of the Night, Performance of the Night -- and got $30,000 from the UFC’s contract with Reebok." But fight purses, "usually" released by state athletic commissions after an event, "have not been made public for UFC 193" in Australia. Fresquez: “We’re into contract renegotiations (for the rematch)." He added that talks "have gone well" (ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL, 12/9).
LITTLE BITTY PRETTY ONE: USA TODAY's Brent Brookhouse wrote "young, good-looking and hyper-athletic" UFC fighters Sage Northcutt and Paige VanZant "represent something unusual" in a world of MMA -- they "look like potential leads in a CW teen drama." Even with their early success, some "seem to have trouble taking them seriously." The UFC "faces new challenges in bringing along these young fighters." The only fighter to "enter the octagon with the kind of marketability the young guns possess" is Rousey. But even she had "establishing herself in other promotions and with an Olympic bronze medal in judo in her back pocket." That means "walking the tightrope between making fights that force the young prospects to grow as fighters while not drowning them in waters too deep for their current skill levels." UFC "will have to do this in a climate where resentment can spike at the slightest feeling a fighter is being handled with kid gloves" (USATODAY.com, 12/9).
