Holly Holm not worried about rare underdog role vs. Harrison

LAS VEGAS – Holly Holm says she isn’t worried about the betting lines for her fight Saturday. That’s a common adage in sports.

Holm, a former women’s bantamweight champion, pulled off one of the biggest upsets in UFC history when she knocked out Ronda Rousey to win the title in 2015. Rousey was about a 9-1 favorite.

Saturday at UFC 300 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Holm (15-6 MMA, 8-6 UFC) will be underdog to two-time Olympic judo gold medal winner Kayla Harrison (16-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who is making her promotional debut after spending the bulk of her career in the PFL, where she won two $1 million titles at 155 pounds.

Harrison, who has fought at featherweight once but never at bantamweight, is around a 4-1 favorite against Holm.

“Nothing’s new there,” Holm said at Wednesday’s UFC 300 media day. “I’ve been the underdog more than once.”

That’s true. Holm indeed has been an underdog before. But she actually hasn’t been in this position since her 2019 fight against former dual champion Amanda Nunes. She’s been favored in all five of her fights since then, the way she has for most of her career.

Holm, a former pro boxing champion, said backing Harrison might result in a surprise.

“I think a lot of people just look at it as she’s strong, she’s been dominant,” Holm said. “But she hasn’t fought anybody like me, and that’s the bottom line.”

To get ready for Harrison, Holm brought in Bellator women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg, who long had been rumored for a matchup with Harrison. Once the PFL bought Bellator, the presumption was that pairing finally was teed up.

But then Harrison left the PFL for the UFC and all but squashed the possibility of that matchup. So Holm training with Cyborg, whom she lost a decision to in 2017, raised a few eyebrows.

“I definitely see us training together again,” Holm said. “It was great to train with another champion. She’s like-minded. She works hard. She’s there to be a good, positive training partner. … She trains hard, but in a good way and with the goal of this fight, not there trying to get her own gain out of things.

“We definitely talked with them about what they’d seen (of Harrison). … It was nice to have Cris there training with my other training partners that I have, but also coming together and talking about the fight because she had been preparing for this and had already done a lot of scouting on their own.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 300.