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Kevin Holland Planning on Working With Daniel Cormier After Suffering Two Consecutive Losses

ByKevin Binoy

Modified Apr 12, 2021 | 8:21 AM EDT

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Kevin Holland went unbeaten over five fights in 2020 and set a record in the process. 2021 has not started off quite as he would have hoped. ‘Trailblazer’ is 0-2 in his first two fights this year, which has taken place just three weeks apart.

Holland’s first fight this year was against Derek Brunson, who was able to neutralize his striking by exposing a gaping hole in his game. Brunson was able to land takedowns early and often against Holland, who showed little to no resistance.

After Till pulled out of his fight against Vettori, ‘Trailblazer’ stepped in to take the fight on short notice. Therefore, he did not have enough time to work on his takedown defense. ‘The Italian Dream’ used the same game plan Brunson did and secured a unanimous decision win to condemn Holland to consecutive defeats.

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Kevin Holland admits the shortcomings in his MMA game

While sharing his thoughts on the fight during the post-fight press conference, he said, “Can’t say too much changes. We’ll see what it is. I honestly don’t know. Go spend some time with D.C. (Daniel Cormier) for sure, work on some of those wrestling things. Go work on wrestling of course. Learn how to stop some of these takedowns. Other than that, same old same.”

‘Trailblazer’ continued, “I’m not going to change the fighter I am and try and become a wrestler just because all these guys want to wrestle. It’s like, I like to strike, I like to bang. I just [need] to do a better job of keeping the fight up on its feet and deliver some more knockouts to the people and that way they’ll be back on the bandwagon sooner or later.”

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Holland did improve his takedown defense and showed more urgency to get back to his feet against ‘The Italian Dream’. Despite that, he still suffered 11 takedowns over the course of 25 grueling minutes. Hence the Italian fighter set the UFC middleweight record for most takedowns landed in a single fight.

Moving forward, ‘Trailblazer’ will have to work extensively on his ground game and takedown defense if he wants to make his way back to the top again and potentially challenge for the title one day.