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Saturday
Boxing: Holly Holm vs. Stephanie Han, Amanda Serrano vs. Cheyenne Hanson, several other fights
TV: ESPN, 7 p.m. (main card)
Tickets: $67-$266, Ticketmaster.com
So, what’s the antidote for slower hands?
Faster feet, maybe?
In Holly Holm’s loss to Stephanie Han by unanimous technical decision on Jan. 3 in Puerto Rico, the Albuquerque boxer was out-punched and out-landed by wide margins.
When Holm (34-3-3, nine knockouts) again challenges Han (12-0, three KOs) for the latter’s WBA lightweight title in Han’s hometown of El Paso, adjustments must be made.
Mission accomplished, she believes.
“I’m a very self-reflecting fighter,” Holm said during a news conference staged Thursday at El Paso County Coliseum, the site of Saturday’s Most Valuable Promotions card. “I feel like the more you dig deep, self-reflect on the things you need to do, the better you’re gonna become.
“So I’ve made changes, improved. Also (fixing) things that I didn’t perform well in the first (fight).”
Holm isn’t spelling out what those changes will be, but a review of the first bout suggests she spent far too much time in “the pocket” — standing directly in front of Han and allowing the younger, faster-handed champion to time Holm’s punches and respond with accurate counter shots.
This wasn’t the Holm who won multiple world title belts and earned boxing Hall of Fame status between 2002-13, compiling a 33-2-3 record before choosing to focus solely on MMA. Of course, she was younger then — she’s 44 — and rarely, if ever, faced an opponent with quicker hands than her own.
Perhaps, in part, it was a matter of bad habits developed during Holm’s MMA career. It’s worth noting that, among her seven MMA defeats, four were the result of — at least in the judges’ eyes — her being out-struck in standup.
The boxer got outboxed.
Holm used lateral movement to great advantage during her first boxing career, picking her shots and minimizing the punches she took in return. But her principal weapon in MMA was the power of her kicks, having begun her combat-sports career as a kickboxer.
To land effective kicks, she needed to plant her feet — reducing her ability to move. She thus became particularly vulnerable to counter right hands, of the sort Han landed consistently during Holm-Han I.
Between rounds in Puerto Rico, trainer Mike Winkeljohn urged Holm to find angles — basically, more movement. Don’t stand in front of her opponent.
Meanwhile, Las Cruces’ Louie Burke, Han’s trainer, was telling his fighter to keep doing what she was doing.
“You’re too quick for her,” Burke said. He wasn’t talking about foot speed.
The fight ended midway though the seventh of 10 scheduled rounds, when an unintentional clash of heads opened a cut above Han’s right eye. Holm doesn’t think the cut was severe enough to justify a stoppage but has acknowledged her deficit on the scorecards (69-64, 68-65, 68-65) was likely too much to overcome.
Only in the abbreviated seventh round did Holm display some of the movement that made her so successful in the past. She won the seventh on two of the three official scorecards.
As her boxing career progressed, Holm added strength, punching power and became more comfortable standing and trading blows. But because of a relatively shallow talent pool in her weight classes at the time, she faced only a handful of opponents with talent and skills comparable to Han’s.
In Puerto Rico, according to (by no means scientific) punch stats provided on the DAZN streaming of the fight, Han threw 98 more punches than Holm and landed 48 more.
Holm doesn’t necessarily need to throw more punches on Saturday than she did on Jan. 3, though landing more would help.
Far more important is more movement; reducing Han’s punch count in the process.
THE HOME COURT: Holm is fighting on an opponent’s home turf for just the second time in her boxing career — the first was a bout against Detroit’s Mary Jo Sanders at the Palace at Auburn Hills on Oct. 17, 2008. The fight ended in a majority draw — one judge scoring it for Holm, two scoring it even.
Five of Han’s 12 bouts have taken place in El Paso, two more in nearby Las Cruces.
“I really love my city,” Han, who works full time as an El Paso police officer, said in an interview with the Journal last week. “… It’s nice just to go do what I have to do, whether it’s weigh-ins, whether it’s a press conference, and go back home. Because I prefer my bed over any other bed.”
THE WEIGH-IN: It’s a fight. Holm weighed in at 134.7 pounds, three-tenths of a pound below the lightweight limit, Friday morning. Han weighed in at 134.6 pounds.
Continue reading...
Boxing: Holly Holm vs. Stephanie Han, Amanda Serrano vs. Cheyenne Hanson, several other fights
TV: ESPN, 7 p.m. (main card)
Tickets: $67-$266, Ticketmaster.com
So, what’s the antidote for slower hands?
Faster feet, maybe?
In Holly Holm’s loss to Stephanie Han by unanimous technical decision on Jan. 3 in Puerto Rico, the Albuquerque boxer was out-punched and out-landed by wide margins.
When Holm (34-3-3, nine knockouts) again challenges Han (12-0, three KOs) for the latter’s WBA lightweight title in Han’s hometown of El Paso, adjustments must be made.
Mission accomplished, she believes.
“I’m a very self-reflecting fighter,” Holm said during a news conference staged Thursday at El Paso County Coliseum, the site of Saturday’s Most Valuable Promotions card. “I feel like the more you dig deep, self-reflect on the things you need to do, the better you’re gonna become.
“So I’ve made changes, improved. Also (fixing) things that I didn’t perform well in the first (fight).”
Holm isn’t spelling out what those changes will be, but a review of the first bout suggests she spent far too much time in “the pocket” — standing directly in front of Han and allowing the younger, faster-handed champion to time Holm’s punches and respond with accurate counter shots.
This wasn’t the Holm who won multiple world title belts and earned boxing Hall of Fame status between 2002-13, compiling a 33-2-3 record before choosing to focus solely on MMA. Of course, she was younger then — she’s 44 — and rarely, if ever, faced an opponent with quicker hands than her own.
Perhaps, in part, it was a matter of bad habits developed during Holm’s MMA career. It’s worth noting that, among her seven MMA defeats, four were the result of — at least in the judges’ eyes — her being out-struck in standup.
The boxer got outboxed.
Holm used lateral movement to great advantage during her first boxing career, picking her shots and minimizing the punches she took in return. But her principal weapon in MMA was the power of her kicks, having begun her combat-sports career as a kickboxer.
To land effective kicks, she needed to plant her feet — reducing her ability to move. She thus became particularly vulnerable to counter right hands, of the sort Han landed consistently during Holm-Han I.
Between rounds in Puerto Rico, trainer Mike Winkeljohn urged Holm to find angles — basically, more movement. Don’t stand in front of her opponent.
Meanwhile, Las Cruces’ Louie Burke, Han’s trainer, was telling his fighter to keep doing what she was doing.
“You’re too quick for her,” Burke said. He wasn’t talking about foot speed.
The fight ended midway though the seventh of 10 scheduled rounds, when an unintentional clash of heads opened a cut above Han’s right eye. Holm doesn’t think the cut was severe enough to justify a stoppage but has acknowledged her deficit on the scorecards (69-64, 68-65, 68-65) was likely too much to overcome.
Only in the abbreviated seventh round did Holm display some of the movement that made her so successful in the past. She won the seventh on two of the three official scorecards.
As her boxing career progressed, Holm added strength, punching power and became more comfortable standing and trading blows. But because of a relatively shallow talent pool in her weight classes at the time, she faced only a handful of opponents with talent and skills comparable to Han’s.
In Puerto Rico, according to (by no means scientific) punch stats provided on the DAZN streaming of the fight, Han threw 98 more punches than Holm and landed 48 more.
Holm doesn’t necessarily need to throw more punches on Saturday than she did on Jan. 3, though landing more would help.
Far more important is more movement; reducing Han’s punch count in the process.
THE HOME COURT: Holm is fighting on an opponent’s home turf for just the second time in her boxing career — the first was a bout against Detroit’s Mary Jo Sanders at the Palace at Auburn Hills on Oct. 17, 2008. The fight ended in a majority draw — one judge scoring it for Holm, two scoring it even.
Five of Han’s 12 bouts have taken place in El Paso, two more in nearby Las Cruces.
“I really love my city,” Han, who works full time as an El Paso police officer, said in an interview with the Journal last week. “… It’s nice just to go do what I have to do, whether it’s weigh-ins, whether it’s a press conference, and go back home. Because I prefer my bed over any other bed.”
THE WEIGH-IN: It’s a fight. Holm weighed in at 134.7 pounds, three-tenths of a pound below the lightweight limit, Friday morning. Han weighed in at 134.6 pounds.
Continue reading...
