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UFC 208: Holly Holm Believes Germaine de Randamie Hit Her After Bell On Purpose

By Jason Fletcher
Published on: 15:47 PST, Feb 12, 2017

Holly Holm entered her match against Germaine de Randamie at UFC 208 on a two-fight losing streak after being submitted by Miesha Tate at UFC 196 and losing a unanimous decision to Valentina Shevchenko at a UFC Fight Night back in July. If Holm were to defeat de Randamie, she would become the first-ever female UFC fighter to hold belts in two separate weight divisions.

The first round was extremely close, but things took a turn at the end of the second round as de Randamie clearly hit Holm after the bell. Referee Todd Anderson didn’t even issue a warning to Germaine for the late hits and it turned out that they were some of the hardest ones that she would land on Holm the entire night.

Things didn’t stop there.

After the bell at the end of the third round, de Randamie clearly hit Holly once again, but instead of deducting a point like he should’ve done, Anderson only issued a warning to the Dutch fighter.

Germaine de Randamie would go on to win a unanimous decision over Holly Holm in which all three judges scored the fight 48-47 for de Randamie. If Anderson would’ve deducted a point for the shots after the bell, then the fight would’ve ended in a draw which would’ve been a fairer outcome even though draws are frustrating

Holm was asked after the fight if she felt that the late blows were on purpose and she didn’t pull any punches.

“It was intentional and it was after the bell,” Holm said as reported by Champions.

“If it’s one shot after the bell at the end of a combo, then yeah, that’s an accident sometimes. You know, you’re in the flurry of it…those were the hardest shots she landed in the whole fight.”

UFC analyst Joe Rogan asked Germaine about the late shots after the fight and she claimed they were accidental.

“It was in the heat of the moment,” de Randamie (7-3) said.

“I apologized, I’m not like that.”

It’s unclear where things go from here for both fighters. It was expected that the winner would take on Cris “Cyborg” Santos next, but de Randamie said after the fight that she has torn ligaments in her thumb that are going to require surgery and she’s not sure how long she will be sidelined.

As for Holm, she’s now lost three matches in a row and there aren’t many other true featherweights signed to the UFC women’s division as of right now. She may have to wait until Dana White adds some more fighters to the division or drop down and fight back in bantamweight for a while.

Speaking of Dana White, the UFC president was not happy with the performance of Todd Anderson or the overall showing at UFC 208.

White joined FOX Sports 1‘s post-fight show to express his disappointment in the first UFC event to be held in Brooklyn.

“Not one of our better events,” White said.

“I always feel like that if we come into a place, you’re going to have at least a few good fights that are going to get you up out of your seat. We didn’t have any of those.”

As for Anderson, Dana didn’t necessarily blame the referee as much as he blamed the commission.

“I feel like the ref from New York shouldn’t be reffing a main event fight,” White said.

“They don’t have enough experience. He should not have been in there. But again, we don’t make those decisions. The commission does.”

The next chance for the UFC and White to put on a better performance at a pay-per-view will be at UFC 209 where Tyron Woodley will face Stephen Thompson for the welterweight title and Tony Ferguson will square off against Khabib Nurmagomedov.

[Featured Image by Anthony Geathers/Getty Images]

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