Getty Alex Oliveirea & Kevin Holland
Exciting UFC welterweight Kevin Holland recently said he was retired, but now he will battle Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson later this year.
The promotion announced that “Trailblazer” and Wonderboy will headline a UFC Fight Night event in Orlando, Florida on December 3rd. The fight is set for welterweight where Thompson is ranked No. 7 per the official UFC standings and Holland stands without a number attached to his name.
Holland had a rough outing for his last trip to the Octagon. He fought Khamzat Chimaev in a 180-pound catchweight and was steamrolled within the first round, losing the fight via D’Arce choke without landing a single significant strike.
The fight news came two days after Holland stated that he was retired from mixed martial arts. He made the comments on his new podcast, “Real Eyes Recognize,” saying that he would only return to competition if something “magical pops up.”
“So I’m retired. I’m officially retired,” Holland said via 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.”
Holland Announced the Wonderboy Fight Before UFC Did
Before the UFC announced his headlining act, Trailblazer shared a clip on Twitter of his podcast’s second episode. And during it, Holland shared that he was no longer retired and that he would be fighting Wonderboy.
“Look, I said if something was magnificent and wonderful or delicious,” Holland said (h/t BJPenn.com).
“They were asking me if I was gonna fight again,” Trailblazer continued. “And I was like, I saw D-Rod [Daniel Rodriguez] get a fight with Neil Magny, the wish list Kevin Holland. And I like Neil Magny, but he’s like the wish list Kevin Holland. His dreads are skinnier than mine. But they gave me Wonderboy.”
“So I’m really excited about the Wonderboy fight!” he said. “Just because I’ve been dealing with Wonderbread for a while, and it took a lot for this [bread] to rip but it won’t take as much for Wonderboy to break down. You get the point here. I got Wonderboy so I’m not f***ing retired anymore. December 3rd, main event.”
Wonderboy Has Been Calling for a Fight With Holland for Months
From Thompson’s end, the fan-favorite fighter has shown interest in fighting Holland for months. Wonderboy is 0-2 in his last two UFC bouts, dropping unanimous decisions to Belal Muhammad and Gilbert Burns.
It was a grappling deficit that led to the two lopsided defeats, and Thompson had since been adamant about fighting a striking-based combatant next.
In an interview with MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn in June, Thompson threw Holland’s name out and a few months later, the two signed on the dotted line.