Kevin Holland eyes welterweight fight with Belal Muhammad: ‘Why not do it now?’

A 25-moment fight with Derek Brunson served as a reckoning for Kevin Holland at UFC Vegas 22.

Now, the middleweight is talking about likely by with a long-held strategy to battle just one division reduce soon after a decline to Brunson on Saturday evening at UFC APEX.

“Honestly, I’d like to get a nutritionist and attempt 170,” Holland stated on the ESPN submit-combat display. “Those boys are heavy in there at 85. It’s very little I just cannot deal with. It’s just something that when you battle for 25 minutes, you assume about that type of things.

“So if I could attempt a 70 combat, that would be amazing. Belal held mentioning my identify acquiring prepared for this battle, and I saved commenting on his minor stuff. Belal [Muhammad is] coming off an eyepoke, I’m coming off a loss. We needed to battle before. Why not do it now?”

Muhammad has been on Holland’s radar for really a although now, and the callout will come immediately after the veteran 170-pound fighter’s setback before this month in a pivotal bout from Leon Edwards. An accidental eyepoke introduced an unlucky ending to their UFC Vegas 21 headliner, with a no-selection declared after Edwards gouged Muhammad’s eye.

Due to the fact then, Muhammad has pushed for a rematch and developed irate at Edwards’ flip-flop on the idea. It’s unclear what the marketing designs for the welterweights.

Holland’s long run is still up in the air, way too. But it was really hard for him not to see the writing on the wall given the outcome towards Brunson, who consistently put him on the mat and held placement.

Mid-battle, Holland was his normally talkative self, at many details conversing with former lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, and of system talking to Brunson, who typically overlooked him and pounded absent. Judges awarded the Strikeforce vet a unanimous choice with scores of 49-45 and 49-46 2 times.

“Let’s go again to 15 minutes,” Holland joked about his first major party duration octagon combat. “I believe I overthought it the entire 7 days about it remaining 25 minutes, and then wrestling the complete time obtaining completely ready for the combat was rough, sparring 25 minutes the total time was tough.

“So I believe I was just overthinking it. And then the very last two rounds, I was like, oh crap, this ain’t that terrible. I possibly should have pushed it from the beginning, but sh*t, props to Brunson.”

The reduction snapped a 5-battle successful streak that made Holland the speediest UFC fighter to rack up as numerous wins, and it denied him a new report for the most octagon wins in a calendar yr. He couldn’t do a lot other than admit Brunson was the far better male.

“He performed it wise, and great occupation for his portion,” Holland claimed. “He did a seriously fantastic task.”

If Holland took a single silver lining from the bout, it was a fifth-spherical takedown that briefly turned the tables on Brunson.

“I killed his undefeated takedown streak,” Holland beamed. “I’m a specialist wrestler now.”

Transferring ahead, although, Holland would seem to comprehend the require to use his body weight to his greatest advantage. Offering up kilos will only direct to more heartache.