Cerrone accepts call out, but Holland retracts it to go after his ‘student’
Holland debuted in the UFC’s welterweight division on Saturday night and earned a stoppage win over Alex ‘Cowboy’ Oliveira.
Kevin Holland was successful in his debut in the welterweight division, finishing Alex Oliveira via second-round technical knockout at UFC 272 this past Saturday.
With one ‘Cowboy’ already on his resume, Holland wanted to add another in Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, who he alluded to during his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan. Though he missed the initial callout, Cerrone was more than happy to oblige Holland after he fought Joe Lauzon at UFC 274 in May.
“Kevin, what’s going on? It’s Cowboy,” said Cerrone (video via ESPN MMA). “I was taking a piss in the commode when you called me out, but I got Joe on May 7th. After that, I’ll come back to ’70 and we can dance, baby.”
However, the ‘Trailblazer’ has since reconsidered his post-fight callout and shifted his focus to someone else. Speaking to assembled media in his post-fight press conference, Holland admitted he would much rather fight Daniel Rodriguez, a protégé of Cerrone.
Holland and Rodriguez were scheduled to meet at UFC on ESPN: Woodley vs. Burns, but the 29-year-old withdrew from the fight due to injury.
“I was just throwing up stupid s—t,” said Holland (video via MMA Fighting). “You know me. I be just talking, but I think the other ‘Cowboy’ and me should not fight, to be honest with you. I think I should be fighting Daniel Rodriguez next, just because last time I called out ‘Cowboy,’ Daniel Rodriguez hopped in my inbox and was like, ‘Yo, don’t do that. That’s my OG.’ So respect to both of those guys.
“Of course I would like to fight the OG, but sometimes you got to take out the student before you can take out the OG,” continued Holland. “If I take out the student, I don’t even really feel like I need to take out the OG. It’d be nice to have the name on the board, but at the end of the day, I’m a big ‘Cowboy’ fan. So, it probably wouldn’t even make me feel as good as I think it would.”
Holland returned to the win column after a rough stretch last year. The ‘Breakout Fighter of 2020’ had a five-fight win streak snapped with back-to-back losses to Derek Brunson and Marvin Vettori at UFC Vegas 22 and UFC Vegas 23, respectively.
Those losses were followed by a No Contest to Kyle Daukaus at UFC Vegas 38, where an accidental clash of heads led to the original fight-ending sequence, but it was overturned after a review of the instant replay.