The coaches and fighters down at JacksonWink MMA have had an idea for quite some time that two of their athletes were going to have to fight one day. There have been rumblings of that in the past. And it kind of comes with the territory when you're one of the best MMA camps on the planet.
Yet this particular one has hit the squad hard. Alistair Overeem and Andrei Arlovski, two very well-liked fighters in Albuquerque, are targeted to face off in the main event of UFC Fight Night 87 on May 8 in the Netherlands.
"The coaches have literally lost sleep over that one," Holm said at a media lunch Monday here in Downtown LA.
"We actually had a team meeting before," Holm said. "This is not something we have to overlook. It could happen, because we do have the best gym in the world and we're producing great fighters. We knew that this might happen eventually."
"That was actually awkward," Holm said. "Sarah and I talked on the phone about it. [We said] hopefully we're gonna see if they can put something else together. Out of all the girls in the division, this is like the only one that I trained with.
"It's not like it's a title fight. I get if it's a title fight, because only one person gets to have the title. All the other matchups, why do they have to make this one? There are plenty of other girls out there."
"It's not the first time we've had to deal with something like that on our team, but this is a pretty big one," Holm said. "They were both kind of on this big comeback streak. Who wants to knock the other one right back? But like I said, we're all in this sport for a reason. We want to reach the top."
LINK: Holly Holm says coaches have 'literally lost sleep' over Alistair Overeem vs. Andrei Arlovski matchup
