Earlier this month, former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm stepped into the Octagon for a highly anticipated showdown with Geramine de Randamie for the inaugural women’s featherweight title. The fight was an extremely competitive one which saw De Randamie awarded the inaugural women’s featherweight title after five hard-fought rounds.
With that being said, there were controversial punches landed by De Randamie on two separate occasions which resulted in the newly crowned champ releasing a statement on the situation saying:
“Woke up yesterday to a lot of support and a lot of controversy. I should be on the highest of highs right now but after my long flight home to Holland I couldn’t stop thinking about the events that took place last night and some of the critics trying to take away what should be one of the greatest moments of my career. I want to say that it was a heated battle with lots of emotion but I AM NOT a dirty fighter. I have always trained to fight to the end or until there referee steps in. Never did I punch around or over the referee to deliver a cheap shot on Holly. I have nothing but respect for Holly and the UFC, and because of that I want to say right now that I think I owe it to the Holly and the fans to do this fight again to make sure that the winner of this historic belt is crystal clear. Holly let’s do this again. Much respect osss.”
Now, with no official word on whether or not Holm will get the rematch following news of Cris Cyborg being cleared on wrongdoing in regards to her USADA violation, the former champ took so social media to release a statement on a potential Germaine de Randamie rematch:
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 2/18/2017.