Four days after suffering a loss in the UFC’s inaugural women’s featherweight title fight, Holly Holm is still in a fighting mood.
According to MMAFighting, Holm officially has filed a complaint against referee Todd Anderson and an appeal of the result to the New York State Athletic Commission. Holm’s controversial loss by unanimous decision against Germaine de Randamie at UFC 208 at Barclays Center last weekend was marred by multiple instances of big blows after the bell.
Twice during the title match, Anderson failed to separate Holm and de Randamie at the first sound of the horn, resulting in Holm taking three extra punches from de Randamie. The two punches thrown at the end of the second round seemed to stagger Holm as she walked to her corner. Then, de Randamie, taking advantage of Anderson’s decision not to assess a warning for her antics in the second round, repeated the sequence at the end of the third round. Again, no foul was assessed.
At the end of the five rounds, de Ranadamie captured the featherweight title by a 48-47 decision. If Anderson had deducted a point from de Randamie, the fight would have been ruled a draw, the complaint says.
“Because referee Anderson did not issue even a warning – much less a foul – at the end of Round 2, de Randamie committed the same foul at the end of Round 3, lobbing two punches at Ms. Holm after the horn sounded to end Round 3,” the complaint states.
A win would have ended Holm’s two-fight losing streak and quieted doubters who have said her win over Ronda Rousey in November 2015 was a fluke. Instead, the 35-year-old Holm’s MMA career may hinge on the success of her appeal.
Her loss was just one of the many questionable decisions by judges at UFC 208, where all but one fight went to the scorecards.