Humanizing Athletes: UFC Fighter Kevin Holland’s Favorite Things

UFC fighter Kevin Holland (21-5)

MMA fighters are savages. They are the best athletes on the planet earth, and — as human beings — have an extraordinarily wide-ranging set of interests. Who are they as people? What makes them tick? What does each athlete have in common with the fans that cheer them on? This series fills in those blanks and gets to the heart of the matter, while exploring what makes your favorite fighters who they are.

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

Kevin “Trailblazer” Holland is one of a kind.

Holland is exciting, he talks trash, and he is a fighter that loves to fight. He fought six times in 2016, five times in 2018, and then in 2020, he fought five times again. That is nuts. Not a lot of professional fighters can pull that off, but Holland did. He also finishes fights; in his 21 wins, he has 17 finishes – 11 KOs, 6 submissions.

Before getting a shot on Dana White’s Contender Series, Holland racked up a 12-3 record. He even beat surging welterweight Geoff Neal via TKO to win the XKO Championship in 2017.

Holland got the call to compete on the second season of Dana White’s Contender Series. He easily won a unanimous decision but wasn’t offered a contract because UFC President Dana White thought he had a big mouth.

Two months later, when Thiago Santos needed an opponent, Holland got a call. He fought Santos on two weeks’ notice. Holland lost the fight via decision but thoroughly impressed Dana White. After that fight, Holland won three of his next four fights.

Holland had a year that most fighters would love to have in 2020. He went 5-0 with four finishes and one decision. He started it off with a 39 second TKO of Anthony Hernandez last May. ‘Big Mouth’ returned three months later with a walk-off knockout of Joaquin Buckley – who had his own viral knockout.

After his knockout of Buckley, he would return a month later to defeat Darren Stewart via split decision and then return a month after defeating Charlie Ontiveros via TKO. In December, Holland capped off his fantastic 2020 with his biggest win to date when he knocked out Jacare Souza from his back. It was one of the best knockouts of the year, and with that win, Holland tied the UFC record for most wins in a calendar year.

Holland returns to action for the first time in 2021, in his first UFC main event against Derek Brunson.

Here is a list of UFC fighter Kevin Holland’s favorite things.

  • Favorite food – Burgers
  • Favorite drink – Body Armor
  • Favorite color – Red
  • Favorite all-time fight to watch – Any Jon Jones fight
  • Favorite knockout – Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort
  • Favorite sport to watch other than MMA – Basketball 🏀
  • Favorite submission to practice – Standing submissions
  • Favorite athlete – Kobe 
  • Favorite movie – The Town
  • Favorite TV show – Power
  • Favorite superhero – Batman
  • Favorite song – A Lot by 21 Savage
  • Favorite band or musician – 50 cent, DaBaby, and Lil Wayne
  • Favorite place to travel to – Home to California or Philadelphia
  • Favorite animal – My dog Drako
  • Favorite holiday – Christmas
  • Favorite hobby – Video games

You can follow UFC Fighter Kevin Holland on Twitter and Instagram.

Check out the rest of my ‘Humanizing Athletes series.’

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