Holly Holm is now the latest fighter to be scheduled to go against UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey this coming January.
Two days after the former world champion boxer learned that she will be fighting Rousey for the bantamweight title sooner than expected, Holm went to Philadelphia to meet Miesha Tate for a fight match.
Even though this fight was choreographed, the timing of when they met cannot go unnoticed. Holm admitted that she didn’t see the fight with Rousey coming so soon. She actually expected to meet the bantamweight champ towards the end of next year; and if she did go against the champ sooner than expected, she thought that it would be after Miesha Tate. Earlier this year, UFC President Dana White announced that the Tate-Miesha trilogy would be happening really soon.
Then all of a sudden, both contenders against Rousey found themselves working together on a project that is slated to be released in Fall of this year. The action drama film, “Fight Valley”, is about a group of women doing some underground fighting. Based on the film’s promotional description, Miesha plays the main character “Jabs”, while Holly plays “Payton Walsh”, the champion fighter who is the one teaching “Jabs” how to fight without breaking the rules.
“We just have one fight scene. I’m a professional fighter in the movie, and she’s kind of a street fighter wanting to be pro. It’s kind of a scuffle in the ring. It was really fun to do,” Holly Holm said during a recent interview at Jackson-Wink MMA.
When they film isn’t rolling, the two bantamweight contenders didn’t have any altercations between them. Of course, there was a bit of tension at first, since it may seem that Holm snagged a very important event from Tate.
“I think going out [there] her and I both knew, ‘This might be a little awkward at first.’ Big change of events, it’s announced Friday and I’m meeting her Sunday morning to choreograph a fight scene. Is it gonna be a little awkward? Absolutely. But I know she’s a professional, I’m a professional, and it was gonna be fine. I wasn’t worried about it. After we did choreography the first morning, after the fight [scene], we talked about it,” Holly said.
Holly revealed that Tate was very professional and understanding of the what happened. Tate even wished Holly all the best with the fight against Rousey. Of course, there won’t be any sharing of fight strategies; both contenders are aiming for the same goal to share any tips. Holm admitted that she didn’t mind this at all, since she already went over numerous Rousey talk in the past few days.
“I feel like we talked about it for a moment because it was the big elephant in the room. We weren’t going to go four days of being together, physically doing a fight scene and not talk about it. The first day we talked about it. Boom. Done. That was it. We didn’t get into game planning, we didn’t get into anything like that. Honestly, I could be fighting her [Tate] anytime soon. “I was like, let’s let this be what it is, let’s film this movie and let’s not let it get too worked up,” Holm said.
Fight Valley will be in the movie screens this December 7th.