“Did I bring
too much emotion to the fight? Did I try too hard to knock her out? I even
questioned if I’d pulled on the right socks,” mused Mary Jo Sanders when she
allowed herself the time to properly reflect on her defeat at the hands of
Holly Holm. “You think about every little thing. But you can’t let it drive you
crazy.”
What
undoubtedly did drive Sanders crazy was Holm’s herky-jerky maneuvers and
catch-as-catch-can methodology. Just when you think you’ve done your due
diligence and are ready for any variable that can be thrown your way, it is
astonishing how quickly you can become unhinged by flesh and blood problems
presented to you in the heat of battle that require immediate response and
reaction and prove to be far more difficult to solve than you could have
possibly anticipated. Holly Holm was the conundrum for which Mary Jo was
seemingly at a loss to find a solution.
Looking to
initiate a pre-emptive strike, Sanders vaulted out of her corner at the opening
bell. Her plan was to cut off the ring and nullify Holly’s
there-one-second-gone-the-next exit strategy. Easier said than done. Using
lateral movement and awkward hop-steps, Holm had the uncanny ability to
manifest an escape hatch where none was present the moment before and skip
quickly away from incoming bombardments. After creating a safe distance, she
might choose to spontaneously launch herself forward with her head down and
fists flailing just as she first did to Sanders roughly thirty seconds into the
fight and would continue to do so repeatedly.
Though the
element of surprise was on her side in such instances, ambushes of this sort
were largely ineffectual from an offensive standpoint due to the fact that the
punches were being thrown while she was in motion and not from a set and
planted position to generate maximum power. Some did land, however, and this
would please judges who score on volume rather than accuracy or potency. To
prevent against counterattacks, Holm would retreat just as hastily as she had
surged ahead and, like the ocean tide, come rushing right back in again.
This made it
incredibly difficult for Mary Jo to keep Holm confined and within easy striking
distance like she had hoped. Instead, she spent the majority of the time
pursuing the gazelle-like champion from pillar to post around the twenty-foot
ring in an effort to trap her long enough so that she could get off more than
one single power shot at a time. Again, easier said than done. But not for lack
of trying.
Sanders
attempted to work her way inside behind her left jab but would more often than
not find herself in a clinch as soon as she was able to close the gap. Referee
Kenny Bayless, as he was wont to do, continually insinuated himself into the
action and made an aggravating habit of breaking Holm and Mary Jo apart with
little provocation. Disinclined to permit fighting to occur at close quarters,
Bayless presented the methodical and heavy-handed Sanders with yet another
quandary while Holly, whose punch selection was predictably unpredictable, was
given the advantage of conducting business at a frantic pace which was far more
to her liking.
All of this
is not meant to suggest that Holm was all flight and no fight. On the occasions
that Sanders did manage to corner her, Holly would respond accordingly,
punching her way out of these temporary predicaments and leaving Mary Jo with
frustratingly little to show for the effort. Not until the waning moments of
the fourth round was Mary Jo able to land anything of consequence, a straight
right followed up by a left hook seconds later which forced Holm to backpedal
away from further trouble. Sanders touched her with two glancing rights in the
process before being tied up as time expired in the frame.
Mary Jo’s
trainer Jimmy Mallo liked what he saw toward the end of the round and urged her
to do more of the same as he applied Vaseline beneath her eyes during the rest
period. Meanwhile, a bundle of inexhaustible nervous energy, Holm bounced up
and down in her corner as if on a pogo stick like she did while awaiting the
bell to signal the beginning of each and every round. It was Holly who came out
swinging but Sanders who connected with the round’s first meaningful shot,
backing Holm up with a right hook at the minute and a half mark.
Whether it
was thrown straight down the pike or came in the form of a hook or uppercut,
Mary Jo’s persistence in throwing the right hand was beginning to pay off more
consistently. This may not have opened the door to prolonged momentum shifts,
but things were looking much more promising for Sanders than they had to that
point. Holm used her long jab to not only ward off her attacker but to tally
points, occasionally popping Mary Jo with her mitt as she was encroaching upon
Holly’s territory.
Holm’s game
of cat and mouse carried on as the bout progressed. So too did Kenny Bayless’
penchant for separating the fighters at his fastidious discretion. These two
variables certainly made initiating, much less sustaining, some sort of
impactful offensive an irksome task for Sanders. Curiously, even in the
clinches Mary Jo seemed to be willfully ignoring Holm’s midsection, targeting
her head almost exclusively whereas Holly would take advantage of the chance to
invest in body work when presented with it. This was a missed opportunity to
take at least some of the wind out of Holm’s sails and potentially keep her
more stationary in the later going.
Sanders had
her best round thus far in the eighth, establishing herself as the clear
aggressor by mauling Holly and shooting short uppercuts between her guard in
the brief instances that the two were allowed to stand shoulder to shoulder.
While Holm made the most of the ring’s entire circumference, it was no longer
her exclusive domain. Mary Jo was noticeably gaining a little more ground with
each elapsed stanza when it counted the most, down the home stretch. But was it
too little, too late?
A slugfest
broke out in the first twenty seconds of round nine until Holm catapulted
forward to grasp Sanders in a clinch, her unwieldy momentum taking both
combatants down to the canvas in a grappling maneuver which foreshadowed
Holly’s future exploits in mixed martial arts. Mary Jo bore the brunt of the
fall on her left shoulder despite tossing Holm aside in mid-descent to ensure
that Holly didn’t land right on top of her.
Thankfully
this did not result in an injury to either fighter, and the action picked up
where it left off before the interruption with Sanders muscling her way to a
slight advantage in a match which would ultimately favor the boxer with the
more acute timing and precision.
Mary Jo
threw and landed a beautiful straight right fresh off a clean break instigated
by Bayless, necessitating another clutch-and-hold tactic from Holm just before
the bell ending the penultimate round. Sensing either that she had Holm hurt or
that the fight was too close to call and she needed to put the pedal to the
metal, Sanders roared straight toward center ring where she let loose with a
flurry. She undoubtedly took some to get some, namely a looping left hook from
Holm in the last minute of the fight, but Mary Jo appeared to be finishing very
strong.
With
fourteen seconds left on the clock, Holly propelled herself upwards off the mat
while spastically kicking her left leg out behind her in a truly bizarre
display of graceless gymnastics. The look on Sanders’ face is priceless. Mary
Jo tried to capitalize on this head-scratching moment by lobbing an
improvisational left hook just as an off-balance Holm touched back down, but it
came up short of the mark.
Holly wasn’t
done with the weird theatricality just yet. She lunged forward moments later
with a wild left hook, again crazily lifting her left leg in the direction of
her backside at a 45-degree angle. A possible callback to her beginnings as a
kickboxer as well as once more providing a glimpse into her UFC career still
three years in the making, this maneuver is known in different disciplines as
the “Superman Punch.” It just missed grazing Sanders’ chin and, with that final
idiosyncratic flourish, the timekeeper’s bell tolled for the last time that
evening.
Jimmy Mallo
picked Mary Jo up and did a victory lap around the ring with her in his arms
while Holly celebrated with Mike Winkeljohn, but the winner of the fight would
be determined by the judges’ scorecards, not self-confidence or wishful
thinking or best intentions. The verdict could conceivably have gone either way
in a fight this difficult to appraise, so it’s hard to argue with the nod being
given to Holly Holm and, truth be told, it was highly unlikely that Mary Jo
Sanders was going to be the beneficiary of a fair and balanced decision in
Albuquerque.
That said,
the 98-92 tallies arrived at by both Joe Garcia and Jon Schorle were ponderous
at best. Mauro Di Fiore only granted Sanders one additional round, scoring the
bout 97-93. Nevertheless, Sanders gave Holm a congratulatory hug after the
decision was rendered and her father Charlie stood and applauded in
appreciation of the effort put forth by his little girl as well as the hometown
champion who just beat her.
Having
handed Sanders her first career loss, retained her title, and won the WBAN belt
presented by Sue Fox, Holly did her trademark backflip at center ring before
taking the microphone to tearfully acknowledge everyone who made the victory
possible. “I’ve never dealt with anyone so professional,” she remarked about
Mary Jo. “She’s a great person, a great fighter, a great champion, and I just
want to give her all the thanks.”
As for her
postmortem on Sanders’ performance, Holm said, “She’s not one of those fighters
who throws real tight. She’d throw looping punches, so I just tried to counter
her down the middle. I didn’t want her to get off and set her feet and throw
all those combinations. And I noticed she wasn’t as good fighting on her
heels.”
Holly would
additionally reflect, “I’m going to learn a lot from this fight, because I
still think I can do a lot better.”
Sources:
Mike
Brundell. Sanders Hopes to Avenge Loss to Holm (Detroit Free Press, October 17,
2008)
Rick
Wright. Holm Earns Lopsided Win (Albuquerque Journal, June 14, 2008)
Holly
Holm/Mary Jo Sanders I (YouTube, uploaded November 27, 2009)
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