Fighters Only

Issue 140

April 2016

Holly Holm’s coronation as the UFC’s new female sovereign leader was completed in Las Vegas when she won a record-breaking four awards at the 2015 Fighters Only World MMA Awards.

Female Fighter of the Year 2015

Knockout of the Year 2015

Breakthrough Fighter of the Year 2015

Upset of the Year 2015

All hail her majesty! The ascension of Holly Holm to the MMA throne started in Melbourne, Australia, last November, and came to a roaring climax on the stage at the Eighth Fighters Only World Mixed Martial Arts Awards. By picking up a record-breaking four silver statues, Holm became the most successful athlete in the history of the sport’s own Oscars ceremony.

Fan votes ensured ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ collected the ‘Female Fighter of the Year’, ‘Knockout of the Year’, ‘Breakthrough Fighter of the Year’ and ‘Upset of the Year’ gongs for 2015, while her team, Jackson-Wink MMA in Albuquerque, New Mexico, once again picked up the ‘Gym of the Year’ prize it first won back in 2009.

Holm is no stranger to awards success. In both 2005 and 2006 – then a world champion boxer – she was named The Ring magazine’s ‘Female Fighter of the Year’. But despite climbing to the top of three weight divisions and the sweet science’s pound-for-pound rankings, she didn’t achieve true crossover success into the mainstream. Until now.

Her sensational knockout performance against Ronda Rousey elevated the 34-year-old into the stratosphere. By not only defeating, but ruthlessly exposing the weaknesses of the former world number one, Holm took the UFC belt on the biggest stage in Octagon history in front of 56,214 fans and became a global star overnight.

Coach Mike Winkeljohn – who has been in Holm’s corner since her very first boxing match – always believed his student could do it. He said the win Down Under was simply “what we came to do” but he admits to FO that seeing Holm on stage at the Awards was a “special moment”.

Holly adds: “Coach Winkeljohn, Greg Jackson and Izzy Martinez – my coaches – all deserve these plaudits as much as I do, as we earned our successes as a team. I’m so lucky to have them in my corner.”