Despite UFC President Dana White initially "insisting" Holly Holm's next fight would be a rematch with Ronda Rousey at the July 9 UFC 200 event in Las Vegas, White yesterday announced on FS1's "UFC Tonight" that Holm "will fight somebody else before the highly anticipated rematch," according to Geoff Grammer of the ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL. White did not "say who or when" Holm would fight, though many "assume it will be as early as March against Miesha Tate, who was the top contender to fight Rousey before the UFC instead gave Holm the title shot." Holm has said since the Rousey fight that she "wants to remain active, as she also did throughout her lengthy world champion boxing career." Holm on podcast "The MMA Hour," said, "I just don’t want to wait around for things if they’re not set in stone. A lot of people have been talking about the rematch, but nobody really knows for sure" (ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL, 1/7). UFC fighter Daniel Cormier, who hosts "UFC Tonight," noted that White has a history of announcing fights on the show. Cormier said to White, "Give us something before you go, just anything. Give us something." White seemed to hesitate for a moment, saying, "Give you something? I can't. I'll do this." Pausing momentarily, White noted, "Everybody is staring at me in the room here." He added, "Holly Holm will fight before she fights Ronda." White added no further details ("UFC Tonight," FS1, 1/6).
1,000 PERCENT: UFC co-Chair & CEO Lorenzo Fertitta said, "We had a lot of internal debate and we decided to go ahead and bring women into the sport and I can tell you one of the things we did as a company is we embraced it 1,000 percent. We never, at any time, treated women any differently than we treated the men, once we let them in. ... We're kind of paving the way and taking the leadership role for women in sports." When asked if the general appetite for female fighting has surprised the UFC, Fertitta said, "Not once we started to see the level of talent that was emerging. ... Now that the sport has evolved in women's MMA and you have enough competitors, we can have a real division and you can really build something off that. ... Ronda is a huge superstar and will continue to be, but all of a sudden now you have Holly Holm that because she fought under the UFC banner and she beat Ronda Rousey, she has become an international star overnight." Fertitta added, "We don't treat fighter pay any different whether you are a male or female. If you are bringing customers, if you are bringing pay-per-views or selling tickets, you get paid just like the males do and I think that's something that is really different from other sports" (MONEY.CNN.com, 1/5).
