When Kevin Holland claimed to be retired a little while back, most observers paid little attention.
After all, the middleweight-turned-welterweight was coming off a loss to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 279, but his stock has never been higher. However, speaking the inaugural episode of the Real Eyes Recognize podcast, Holland has doubled down on his earlier comments.
“So I’m retired. I’m officially retired,” Holland said on the show (h/t MMA Fighting). “I’m retired from fighting. I had a good fight, good payday, I had a good run. I see some of the people online [saying] ‘obviously he realizes he’ll never get the belt’ and my little psychedelic trip, that means I was wrong. I can’t be wrong on a psychedelic trip. I’ve lost coming out to Young Boy. That was my last hope, never losing coming out to Young Boy. Times are rough for your boy.
“But I’m really, really happy on the green side. Unless something super-duper magical pops up, yeah, I’m pretty happy with the way things are.”
As for Chimaev, there appears to be no hard feelings. “He put me in a very good spot in my life,” Holland stated. “We love that guy. I’m actually thinking about getting a poster of that guy hung up in my bathroom.”
As MMA retirements go, it feels like this one will be shorter than most.
