A champion response from the Preacher’s Daughter.
Ronda Rousey opened up about her stunning knockout loss to Holly Holm during a recent appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. The former UFC women’s bantamweight champion made the startling revelation that she contemplated taking her own life after being dethroned by Holm.
Holm has given her response to these claims to Sherdog, refusing to say sorry to Rousey out of respect for her competitive spirit. She feels that an apology, especially a hackneyed one, would only serve to insult Rousey.
“There’s a lot of things around that. When I heard that she said that, for me it’s one of those things it’s like, ‘How do I respond to that?’ I don’t want to say I’m sorry because I think on a competitive level for me, if somebody was to say they’re sorry after [beating me], it’s like, ‘No, I’m a competitor.’ I’m not a charity case.”
“I feel like that’s something the best thing is for me not to say anything at all. I don’t want to say that I’m glad that she felt that way and I don’t want to say, ‘Oh I’m so sorry.’ It’s something I think that you have to dig through on your own. In the long run, she’ll be stronger mentally from it.”
Prior to becoming the baddest woman in the UFC, Holm dominated the world of boxing. However, she too has experience the crushing weight of defeat after a period of dominance like Rousey.
In 2011, Holm’s long winning streak inside the ring ended in stunning fashion after being brutally knocked out by Anne Sophie Mathis. Six months later, Holm won the rematch, a feat she was able to complete because of the great support system surrounding her.
“I hurt for her that she feels that way because that is a very low place. I did have a lot of help around me to where I did not feel that way. People would say, ‘Oh it’s not the end of the world.’ I was like, ‘Well that’s exactly what it feels like, the end of the world.’”
“When you put your heart and soul into something and it gets shut down devastatingly, it’s terrible. It’s a horrible feeling.”
