The Kevin Holland Conundrum
Saturday's main event wasn't an anomaly; it was the ever-present downside of the way the emerging middleweight approaches fighting
In the biggest moment of his career, Kevin Holland was just happy to be out there.
Paired off with Derek Brunson in the main event of this past weekend’s UFC event in Las Vegas, the 28-year-old emerging middleweight laid an egg.
Following a week of being hyped up with video packages detailing his jewelry and sneaker purchases, and social media clips showcasing his constant chattering at opponents, Holland walked into the Octagon and left half his pay check on the table, dropping a unanimous decision to Brunson in a fight where he appeared more focused on getting off his in-fight commentary than any kind of sustained offence.
Despite Brunson slowing down noticeably after the first two rounds and getting put on shaky legs a minute into that second stanza, Holland not only failed to capitalize, but he showed no real interest in doing so, spending more time talking to Khabib Nurmagomedov from bottom than actively trying to win the biggest fight of his career.
Throughout his ascent last year and all the way through the early stages of Saturday’s encounter, Holland’s constant jawing was viewed and portrayed as a lovable quirk — a grand deviation from what you normally see out of athletes and a compelling hook to a guy that was rising through the ranks. But as he continued to drop rounds and show little to no urgency, the fun gimmick became the focus of post-fight conversations about what went wrong on Saturday night.
For his part, Holland didn’t seem bothered at all – he was energetic and smiling during his post-fight sit-down with Megan Olivi, talking about a possible move to welterweight, how five-round fights were too tiring, and seeming like a guy who genuinely didn’t care that he just looked foolish in the biggest moment of his career.
Because he didn’t, and that’s what has made Holland an conundrum since Day One.
What transpired Saturday night wasn’t anything surprising to those that had been paying attention to Kevin Holland’s UFC career prior to last year’s five-fight winning streak that turned the verbose middleweight into a cult figure; it was simply a return to the frustrating form that kept him off peoples’ radar until midway through 2020, when the frequency of his appearances and stoppage wins kept piling up.
Before that, however, Holland was an inconsistent fighter who always seemed more interested in bumping his gums than beating his opponents. His talent was obvious and apparent to anyone that tuned in to see him compete — he had good size, a long reach, and was creative in his approach — but for all his natural gifts and clear skill, he clearly lacked focus and intensity.
That’s not an after-the-fact, now-that-he-lost criticism either: it’s the reiteration of a fact that has been apparent from the night he competed on Season Two, Episode One of the Contender Series.
Holland’s opponent that night was Will Santiago Jr., a Jackson-Wink MMA Academy representative with a 9-4 record who primarily fought at welterweight. He was 35 years old at the time, giving up eight inches in height and 10.5 inches in reach.
Did Holland need to be concerned about the power Santiago Jr. had exhibited while earning quick finishes over mediocre regional competition and former TUF contestant Chuck O’Neil? Sure.
Was it apparent pretty early on that the compact veteran wasn’t much of a match for the tall, rangy, fluid Holland? Yes, yes it was.
Snippets of that fight made the rounds last week as proof that Holland has always been an in-fight talker, with scores of people enjoying him asking Santiago Jr. if he trains with Jon Jones, but if you watch the entire fight from start to finish, focusing on the action and not Holland’s antics, you’ll see a clearly superior fighter showing zero interest in asserting his dominance and winning emphatically.
Instead, Holland continued to talk and land the occasional strike, never facing any real danger, but never putting Santiago Jr. in a bad spot either. He coasted, content to win on the cards and display his personality rather than handle his business, make an impact, and graduate to the biggest stage in the sport.
He didn’t get a contract that evening because he lacked focus, urgency, and seemingly any understanding of the opportunity he was squandering. That origin story got repackaged and re-written last year during his breakout campaign, but anyone that saw it happen knows Holland didn’t miss out on a contract because he talked too much; it’s because he even though he was the significantly better fighter, he let Santiago Jr. hang around.
It was the equivalent of chuckling your way through an interview for your dream job and giving your prospective bosses no indication that you actually want the position and genuinely would be the best hire.
After losing his short-notice debut to Thiago Santos at UFC 227 in a bout where he flashed upside and flapped his gums, Holland earned his first victory inside the Octagon three-and-a-half months later, submitting Welshman John Phillips in the third round.
His next two outings came against Gerald Meerschaert and Alessio Di Chirico and stand as precursors to what transpired on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
The vast majority of people scoring those fights at home believe Holland should have lost; 14 of 17 media scorecards tabbed Meerschaert as the victor, and 11 of 14 saw things in favor of Di Chirico.
In each instance, Holland seemed more interested in playing around and having fun than getting his hand raised. He accepted bad positions and failed to fight with any noticeable intensity, which is fine when you’re head-and-shoulders better than someone, but less acceptable when you’re in a close battle with someone at the highest level of the sport.
In both instances, he probably should have lost, but between shaky scorecards and Di Chirico’s inexperience, Holland eked out a pair of victories that kept him moving forward, reinforcing the bad habits and giving him no reason to have to change up his approach.
After he got submitted by Brendan Allen at the end of 2019, Holland was ready to make some adjustments, telling me when we spoke ahead of his scuttled fight with Jack Marshman in London that he was trying too hard to live up to the “Big Mouth” moniker Dana White had bestowed upon him, and that he needed to get back to collecting quick finishes while saving the majority of the talking for later.
That fight with Marshman was scrapped when the annual March event in London was called off due to the coronavirus pandemic, but when he did return in May against Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez, Holland walked into the Octagon and handled his business, getting the Contender Series graduate out of their in 39 seconds in the first true showcase of how good he can be when he’s focused and aggressive.
He didn’t talk — he just marched across the Octagon, buried his knee into Hernandez’ midsection, and got his hand raised. It seemed like he had turned a corner… but he hadn’t.
When he fought Joaquin Buckley in May, Holland was back to his old habits, toying with the newcomer, who fought a week earlier, before finally landing a fight-ending right hand early in the third round. Against Darren Stewart, he dominated at range, but allowed the fight to be closer than it needed to be, tiring down the stretch before landing on the happy side of a split decision verdict that honestly shouldn’t have been a split decision in the first place; Holland won the first and second, even if Ron McCarthy thought otherwise.
The Charlie Ontiveros fight was over before Holland had any chance to start talking or play around, and then his breakthrough moment against “Jacare” Souza came because he made the wild decision to accept being on bottom with Souza in his guard to start. It’s all well and good because things worked out favourably, but it was a questionable choice in real time that should still stand as an example of his suspect decision-making and greater interest in playing around than handling his business efficiently.
Few people had anything critical to say about Holland’s approach in 2020 because the end results were always positive, but if you were watching the fights and focusing on his approach, not his antics, you would have seen the warning signs that something like what transpired on Saturday was a distinct possibility.
Kevin Holland is a phenomenal talent with all the natural gifts and raw tools to be a contender in the UFC middleweight division, but he doesn’t seem to want it, at least not if it isn’t on his terms.
That’s fine — it’s kind of admirable, actually — but it also feels like a bit of a waste, and that’s why Saturday’s fight with Brunson left so many with a sour taste in their mouths, questioning a fighter many of them fell in love with over the previous year.
They saw those five straight victories — but primarily the Buckley and Souza knockouts, if we’re being honest with one another — complete with in-fight commentary tracks and thought, “Here’s a unique cat that brings something different to the table” and climbed on the bandwagon. They saw the peaks and the potential, but missed the valleys and the very clear instances where Holland lacked focus, intensity, and any kind of measurable sense of urgency inside the Octagon.
Then when he fought a talented, established veteran who was growing tired of being called out by and thrown in against these upstarts looking to get ahead at his expense, all those bits that were always missing, but didn’t seem concerning when he was winning became the reasons he lost.
None of what transpired Saturday night in Las Vegas was surprising to anyone that has been watching Holland since he failed to earn a contract on Season Two of the Contender Series.
This is who he has been the whole time and it’s probably who he is always going to be.
Holland doesn’t seem to want it as much as his contemporaries or the innumerable regional talents that would trade lives with him in heartbeat.
He doesn’t even seem to want it as much as UFC fans and observers seem to want it for him, and that’s why has always been so frustrating to watch.