After Dana White discusses boxing promotion, Holly Holm addresses possible return to the sweet science

Not long ago, UFC President Dana White announced that he and the UFC’s other top decision-makers were floating the idea of promoting boxing matches in the future. This news is likely to have sounded interesting to a number of the UFC’s boxing savvy fighters – particularly upcoming women’s featherweight title challenger Holly Holm, who was a boxing champion long before her UFC career began.

While it would be fair to assume this news might interest Holm, however, it apparently doesn’t. Speaking to the media during the festivities for UFC 218 in Detroit, where she was a guest fighter, she assured that her boxing career is over.

“I am done boxing,” Holm said (h/t MMAJunkie.com). “I don’t have the passion for it any more, and it hasn’t come back to me. Maybe that’s because I’m still fighting [in MMA], so I don’t feel like I ever really retired [from boxing].”

Holm then recounted the phase in which she began to realize that her boxing career was drawing to a close. It was around the time of the third win of her pro MMA career, when she knocked out Katie Merril at Bellator 91. Though she was scheduled for a boxing match a few months later, she found herself with very little motivation to return to the ring. 

“I didn’t know how I would feel when that fight was over, with a win if I’d be excited and want to do it again,” Holm said of her final boxing bout. “With a loss, I’d probably want to do it again, because I wouldn’t want to end like that. When the fight was over, it was beautiful. It was in my hometown and they brought a beautiful bouquet, and I’m standing there thinking, ‘I can’t wait to take my boxing shoes off.”

“And, that’s it. I keep thinking, am I going to ache for it again? And I don’t. And it’s not because I don’t love boxing. I did, obviously. I did it for 10 years professionally. It’s just my new motivation is this new career I’ve been on.”

Holly Holm returns to the Octagon in the main event of UFC 219 when she challenges Cris Cyborg for the featherweight belt.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 6/12/2017.