Holland’s career doesn’t have much of an obvious direction at the
moment, but he remains a welcome addition to any card, including
this one. Holland was an unlikely breakout star for the UFC in
2020, as his approach to both his fights and his career were a
perfect match for the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
Holland’s tendency to talk trash made for entertaining commentary
in an otherwise empty arena, and his willingness to step in on late
notice meant that he was constantly in front of viewers, racking up
four wins in about four months at the very end of the year. While
Holland reached new heights in 2020, 2021 is when things came
crashing down a bit. Slotted into two main event bouts, Holland
found himself without much of an answer for the wrestling of
Derek
Brunson and Marvin
Vettori. It’s understandable that Holland would wind up cutting
down to welterweight in the wake of those results, but rather than
shore up the weaknesses in his game, “Trailblazer” seemed to
regress from a pure skill standpoint. Now gigantic relative to most
of his opposition, Holland was mostly content to slug things out
rather than fight with his usual level of craft, which resulted in
some entertaining fights but also meant he treaded water in the
greater picture of the division. Holland eventually returned to 185
pounds in June, and it’s hard to tell where things go from here. An
injury stoppage loss to Roman
Dolidze in October showed that Holland still struggles with
stronger wrestlers, and it’s difficult to know if he has rebuilt
the game that was effective during his last run at a middleweight.
At any rate, while Holland has plenty of questions to answer, the
same is true of de Ridder, who looks to build on a successful UFC
debut in November.
De Ridder was highly successful outside the UFC, including runs as
a light heavyweight and heavyweight titleholder in ONE
Championship, but it has been with an approach that looks better in
practice than on paper. De Ridder’s striking is spotty, but he gets
by as an absolute whiz of a submission artist compared to his
peers. When things have gone south for “The Dutch Knight,” they
have tended to spiral out of control. Faced with the horsepower of
Anatoly
Malykhin, de Ridder quickly ran out of ideas when he proved
unable to get his opponent to the mat and got punished for it.
However, de Ridder has looked to compensate for that gap in
strength by cutting down to middleweight for his UFC career, which
has been a mixed bag. He’s now one of the largest middleweights on
the UFC roster, but his gas tank was a clear liability despite a
late submission win over Gerald
Meerschaert in his Octagon debut. De Ridder could easily wind
up getting an easier win in this outing, as Holland does tend to
get outwrestled and generally makes some poor decisions inside the
cage. Still, Holland is an underrated grappler and likely just
needs to survive a round before de Ridder starts to flag, at which
point he will likely have few answers for the American’s power. The
pick is Holland via second-round knockout.
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