Kevin Holland is one of those mixed martial artists who will talk with his opponents during a bout regardless if he’s winning or losing. This has won him over quite a bit of fans.
Holland was once nicknamed ‘Big Mouth’. This originated with UFC president Dana White who ended up explaining it at the UFC 227 presser/
“He [Holland] was on the contender series. He was a talented guy and he won his fight, but he wouldn’t shut up. [During] the entire fight, he was talking to me – the whole fight. This guy comes in, and is talking s**t [for] the entire fight. So I said: I’m not signing this guy, I don’t want him, I’m not interested in him.”
White continued by describing how he ultimately decided to allow Holland to compete in the UFC.
“Thiago Santos’ fight falls out, right? And, I said let’s call some contender guys that we liked. They all turned down the fight. I said: Call ‘Big Mouth’. I want to see if ‘Big Mouth’ takes this fight. [He] took the fight, came in and fought the fight – still talking s**t – in there with Thiago Santos, this beast!”
Thiago Santos was a light heavyweight contender famous for a close war with Jon Jones. He briefly dropped down to middleweight at which point UFC struggled to find a match up for him.
Holland’s big mouth would land him another loss of his career when he made comments that Chimaev should shave off his beard ahead of UFC 279. The big mouth would end up earning him a major payday in late day card reshuffle that ended with Holland clashing with Chimaev for the entirety of one round and getting submitted by a D’arce choke,
Holland’s Achille’s heel was revealed to be wrestling later in his career but despite all that he’s content to be an entertainer and use his striking to his advantage.
Holland recently faced Stephen Thompson and struck a gentleman’s agreement with him to not use takedowns – which ended up costing him considering he broke his hand early on during their bout and was TKOed as a result of his complacency in Round 4 despite making progress early on.
Regardless of his losing streak, UFC is unlikely to have qualms about staying in the Kevin Holland business.