Holly Holm is tired of the doping drama between her and Cyborg.
Much drama has been made over drug testing for the upcoming fight between former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm and Cris “Cyborg” Santos. Many have accused Cyborg of not being the cleanest athlete in the sport today.
Last month after Cyborg started making insinuations about Holm and performance-enhancing drugs on Twitter.
Holm, who will meet Cyborg for the UFC featherweight championship at UFC 219, posted a video on Instagram responding to Cyborg’s tweets.
“I just know I compete clean and they test me all the time,” she says. “So, I just never needed applause for passing my tests.”
On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Holm explained why she felt like she needed to take what, for her, was an unusual step.
“I didn’t want my name to be associated with any kind of performance-enhancing drugs,” Holm said. “Because I’ve never used, ever. Not in any sport I’ve ever done in my life, not in anything I’ve ever done.
“Just because I don’t put it on my social media every time come to my house or come to my gym, doesn’t mean being tested,” Holm said. “It’s never an issue, they come and say they’re taking a drug test and I go, okay, so I do. It’s not like I plaster it out there saying ‘look I got tested today’ and let everybody know. It’s not really my style.”
Cyborg has been casting accusations not just at Holm, but the entirety of her team at JacksonWink gym. Several fighters out of that camp have run into testing trouble, most notably Jon Jones. Holm felt compelled to put a stop to these comments.
“I definitely don’t want that to be even something that would start the talk of Holly and performance enhancing drugs,” she said. “I just wanted to put stop to it right away. that’s not how I am training camps off of hard work. I just wanted to put a stop to that conversation before it got anywhere and before people on the internet went crazy.
“It had nothing to do with pumping a fight, nothing to do with trying to even talk trash about a fight, that’s stuff’s normal. But to be acting like, I’m not getting tested or whatever. I was the most tested last year, and even this year, I’m still tested more than she is, so I told her just to stop whining.”
“I’ve never had issues with Cyborg. I really haven’t. When I’ve seen her, she’s been a decent person. There’s definitely been a lot more attacking on her side. But that happens when fights are coming up. I really don’t take too much to it, I’m going to keep training. When it comes down to the fight, no matter how much trash talk there is, or no matter how much one can be nice to your face in public it doesn’t matter. Here’s the fact: She’s going to want to hit me as hard as she can, she’s going to want to knock me out. Same here. I want to knock her out, I want to win the fight. That’s the name of the game, so that’s what I’m here for.”
For the record, both Holm and Cyborg have been tested by USADA 11 times thus far in 2017.
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