Las Vegas, NV — Immediately following his win over Charlie Ontiveros at UFC Vegas 12, Kevin Holland had words for middleweight champ Israel Adesanya, who was seated cageside. In his post-fight interview on ESPN+, Holland alluded to an incident that transpired between the two.
Speaking at the post-fight press conference following the event, Holland (20-5) initially declined to elaborate on the confrontation. Then changed his mind, recalling an encounter in a stairwell back in 2018.
“Nothing really happened, I’m just one of those guys that you don’t really want to play with too much. I come from a different spot than most of these other guys,” began Holland. While in L.A., Holland was getting ready to fight Thiago Santos, and Adesanya was doing a media interview ahead of his fight with Derek Brunson. “For some reason when we were walking in the stairway, I was going down the stairs, and he was going up the stairs. While he was going up the stairs, he made some kind of comment. So I made a comment back. Then he wanted to get big and bad, it seemed like. My coach went to pushing him the opposite way, and James Vick went to pushing me the opposite way. Ever since then, I knew, when the time comes and we see each other again, I was going to have something to say.”
At least initially, that didn’t happen. “As I was walking up to him yesterday in the parking lot, he stuck his hand out and said ‘Mr. Holland’ and wanted to shake my hand,” continued Holland. “I’m cool with that, I’m going to be respectful, because he is the champ, you know what I mean? And he is older than me, and I’m not really much of a disrespectful guy unless you make me.”
Later, coming out of a COVID-19 testing booth, Holland noted that Adesanya’s energy was different. It had been friendly during the parking lot exchange, with the “Mr. Holland” and everything. “As I was walking away [from the testing booth], he says I’m the guy he was talking about. What the f*ck are you talking about me for? You’re the champ, and I’m just some f*cking guy coming up the ranks. The target’s on your back, not my back. Why are you talking about me? But then when I come out the tent, and the security guard asks me when am I going to fight Stylebender, all of a sudden you’re big and bad when the security’s around. But when it was just you and it was just me and it was just regular people, you were kind of cool. But now all of a sudden, your voice and your tone changes.”
There was that, and Holland noted that Adesanya danced to opponent Charlie Ontiveros’ walkout music, and not his own. Which gives Holland the idea that “for some reason, this motherf*cker don’t like me.”
On the ESPN+ broadcast, Holland had to watch his words. “The only thing I wanted to say was, ‘what the f*ck you want to do now?” But he don’t want to do nothing. He just wants to play the game, and play the game, and play the game. I’m not the one to play the game with.”
For those curious about the finish to Holland’s fight against Ontiveros, meanwhile, which ended in injury, Holland believes he knows what happened. Ontiveros immediately indicated he’d hurt his neck, and was removed from the octagon by stretcher.
“My shoulder. My shoulder was in the neck,” Holland confirmed. Later he added “He said his neck. I realized it was his neck. Like I said, the neck’s nothing to play with. There’s no reason to do anythign after that. We’ll see if it’s really serious or not. He was serious. It sucks.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 12 post-fight press scrum with Kevin Holland above.
