Holland's Paradox

Sometimes, your biggest strength is also your biggest weakness. For UFC fighter Kevin Holland, some fans (who are filthy casuals lmao) have attributed Holland's loss to Derek Brunson as a product of his attitude. After all, 'live by the sword, die by the sword', right? Kind of.

Holland's habit of constantly talking is a polarizing force; some find it annoying, others find it entertaining. During the Brunson fight, Holland was clearly losing rounds, but continued to talk casually, giving the impression that he did not care, and was just giving the fight away. Before I explain why that's stupid to assume, the "live by the sword, die by the sword" axiom does apply to Holland, but only as far as entertainment value goes. It elevates his wins in the public eye, but will inevitably punctuate his losses, as well. People like to watch smack-talkers fight, either to watch them get beat up, or to back up their smack-talk. From what I can tell, Holland doesn't talk a lot of trash, though. 

Holland's talking is likely one of the things that makes his mentality strong enough to be considered a legit fighter. By talking, he could be defusing a lot of the tension associated with fighting. How can I say that? Cuz I did the same thing. On the outside, it might've looked like I was just clowning around and not taking the fight seriously. But I did. One of the ways I was able to stay so calm was to act silly. I think it's a good approach to take if it works. Many fighters have their own personal ways of preparing themselves mentally. With someone like Nate Diaz, he's someone who likes to crack jokes, but when it comes to fighting, he describes it as "going to war". For me, that's too much tension to carry around.

I do not think that Holland's talking hurts his fighting ability, though. It's not really a double-edged sword, except when people who don't understand are trying to make sense of what they're seeing. I'm not trying to be condescending, but I don't think people really fully understand the mental hell of fight preparation. I could talk about that for days. A lot of fighters, like George St. Pierre, Darren Till, Mark Coleman, and Robert Whittaker have spoken on this extensively. These are the guys at the top of the food chain! Yet, if Holland's talking helps him, then he's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

From a practical perspective, if you look at the fight from a technical perspective, Brunson was largely outmatched in the boxing department, but got Holland to the mat early in the fight, and was able to use that top control time to take some of the wind out of Holland's sails. I'm not sure if that was a slip by Holland, or if he got knocked down. I'd have to go back and watch it again to know. But he was getting clobbered for a good chunk of the first round. That's exhausting. From there, Holland seemed to be ringing Brunson's bell nearly every time they exchanged on the feet. I think Holland got over-zealous to try to get a finish since he was tired. When he got taken down, he tried to just be calm and conserve energy rather than trying to stand up. I feel like, strategically, this was a mistake because he was trying to stall the action on the ground to get the referee to stand them up. I kind of dislike that type of tactic, just on the grounds that it's "boring". Other than that, if you're tired, it's smart to wait to stand up than struggling with 100% of your effort to get out from under an experienced wrestler.

Because Holland kept his weight on his front leg to throw big punches, his hips were always close enough for Brunson to shoot under the strikes and take Holland down. Khabib even was saying that Holland should strike and then move out of the pocket. But Holland was looking for a knock-out. If he got it, everyone would be talking about how he is a genius right now. The problem is that he's never faced a wrestler of Brunson's caliber before in the cage. Simply put: Brunson was taking over the fight, Holland felt he couldn't stop the takedown, and was getting more and more tired, so he felt he had to hunt for a knock-out.

Nowhere in there did the talking really play a role. If he hadn't said anything the entire fight, the outcome would likely be the same. Actually, it might've been even worse for Holland. If his talking was, in fact, a way to keep himself relaxed, then being tense and anxious during the fight would probably lead to him taking a huge amount of damage. I was surprised by how little damage he had taken after the fight was over. I thought there would be some cuts or swelling, but that wasn't there. Maybe his big mouth helped him. It makes Dana White look like a casual fan when he walks off to the back during a main event. 

To conclude, I'd like to say again that different fighters have different ways of getting themselves ready to fight. When they lose, it's natural for people to question their methods, but ultimately, it's a two-man (sometimes two-woman) sport, and one fighter may not have done much "wrong", but just got outplayed. I think Holland got outplayed. That's because Brunson did the right stuff, not because Holland did anything wrong.