UFC’s Kevin Holland Wants Another Chance Against Daniel Rodriguez
With a lingering issue with his shoulder affecting how he fights, it seemed almost impossible for Kevin Holland to compete just two weeks after his last bout. Still, he attempted to do whatever he could. Now, Holland is determined to fight once again, regardless of what doctors say.
“… I don’t care what anybody says. I want to fight again in six weeks,” Holland told MMA Junkie. “If the UFC books me a fight, I want to fight again in six weeks. If I can fool them in four weeks, I’ll fight in four weeks. … I got a little flame after the fight. I don’t what that flame to go down. I want it to go up.”
Holland (17-5) was supposed to face off against Daniel Rodriguez at UFC on ESPN 9 in Las Vegas last weekend. It would have been his second time competing in a few-week span. A shoulder injury forced him out of the bout, allowing Gabriel Green to take over. The shoulder injury is something that has affected him his entire career, and although he has been advised against it, he continued training.
It wasn’t until his team decided to do something that he was forced to not earn a payday.
“I did the therapy for (the injury in the Di Chirico fight), but it’s a shoulder that’s always gave me a problem,” Holland continued. “I got it looked at. They said I had some tears in there, I guess. To me, it just felt really inflamed. It just felt like it was hard to move. Ultimately, I wasn’t using it during the week, week-and-a-half of camp, you can say we had. My manager was catching a whiff of it, so they pulled the plug so I could get it officially looked at and stuff like that.”
“Trail Blazer” is 4-1 in his last five after competing on Dana White’s Contender Series. His last bout was a TKO-win at the hands of Anthony Hernandez, only needing 39 seconds to beat him.
Rodriguez ended up beating Green via unanimous decision. The 27-year-old says his shoulder is at about 25% and is just waiting to be cleared, per his team. Not wanting to wait, Holland is outweighing the risks for his desire to compete and earn potential bonuses. With multiple cards being planned and “Fight Island” on the table, Holland is hoping Rodriguez will be ready when he is.
“Let’s talk about D-Rod winning his fight,” Holland stated. “He had to take a last-second opponent on short notice. Hats off to him. I sent him a little message and he said, ‘Run it.’ It’s like, in six weeks, me and him have business, so let’s handle it.”