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Surging UFC middleweight contender Kevin Holland's star is on the rise, and he now finds himself amidst title conversations in the well-stacked 185lbs division.
Kevin Holland violently knocked out Jacare Souza in the first round of their main card fight at UFC 256 this past weekend. This was Holland's fifth straight win in 2020, and he said he's itching to compete once more before the end of the year.
In one year, Holland has gone on to put himself in the title picture in a division filled with some of the most dangerous fighters on the planet.
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On this week's episode of The DC & Helwani MMA show, former two-division champion Daniel Cormier said that he believes Holland will face reigning middleweight champion Israel Adesanya in the near future.
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DC was mighty impressed with Holland's performance. Cormier said that he is looking forward to the trash-talk between Adesanya and Holland if they get booked to fight each other sometime in the future.
“I think Kevin Holland would fight Izzy. Let’s not get crazy, the trash talk would be fun. I mean, Israel Adesanya would talk to him. I think down the line as Kevin continues to come into his own, hopefully, we get to see it.”
DC and Helwani both hailed Israel Adesanya and Kevin Holland as good trash talkers; however, they claimed that The Last Stylebender holds the edge when it comes to both verbal and mental warfare.
Kevin Holland is in contention to become the UFC Fighter of the Year
Following his win against Charlie Ontiveros at UFC Fight Night: Hall vs. Silva, Kevin Holland charged towards Adesanya, who was present at cage-side to cheer one of his teammates. The pair engaged in a serious confrontation. Since then, the speculation of a potential clash between the pair started doing the rounds.
With the win over Souza, Kevin Holland broke into the Top 15 in the official middleweight rankings. Though he is ranked #15, Holland is unsurprisingly in contention to become the UFC Fighter of the Year. He is 5-0 inside the Octagon this year and scalped some slick finishes to go with it.
Holland wants to compete again before the end of the year, and although that seems unlikely, another win would cap off an incredible year for him.
