Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie fight Saturday night during UFC 208 at the Barclays Center.
Holly Holm enters this fight with a 10-2 record and has won 70 percent of her fights by knockout. Holm has lost her last two fights and is coming off a July loss to Valentina Shevchenko. Holm is averaging 3.08 significant strikes per minute with an accuracy percentage of 32.7 percent. Holm is averaging 0.36 takedowns with an accuracy percentage of 100 percent. Holm has a lot of work to do in order to redeem herself, as it seems like her upset victory over Ronda Rousey was decades ago. Miesha Tate was able to take Holm out of her comfort zone and Shevchenko was able to outstrike her way to victory. Still, despite her hiccups and her age of 35 years old, Holm is still one of the better strikers in the sport and always a threat to produce a knockout. This will be Holm’s first fight in New York.
Germaine de Randamie enters this fight with a 6-3 record and has won 50 percent of her fights by knockout. De Randamie has won four of her last five fights and is coming off a May win over Anna Elmose. De Randamie is averaging 3.19 significant strikes per minute with an accuracy percentage of 44.7 percent. De Randamie is averaging zero takedowns with an accuracy percentage of zero percent. De Randamie is a solid 3-1 in her UFC career and now has a chance to take things to the next level at 32 years old. De Randamie has a deep kickboxing background who is a striker at heart and does a wonderful job of defending. De Randamie has won her last two fights by knockout and should be in her comfort zone this fight due to the style Holm likes as well. This will be De Randamie’s first fight in New York.
Holm isn’t the same confident knockout machine she was a couple of years ago and it’s hard to be confident in her given her past two fights. De Randamie is in great form and has been waiting for this chance since joining the UFC back in 2013. De Randamie will also be allowed to fight her fight considering Holm doesn’t exactly like to go to the canvas. I just don’t have much confidence in the former champion, as she’s getting older and that swagger is gone. I’ll take the younger and hungrier fighter in De Randamie to win this fight.
We should see a new champion here.