Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight champion, Holly Holm, and WBA Lightweight champion, Stephanie Han, threw down once against last night (Sat., March 30, 2026) in El Paso, TX., and once again the fight ended with some controversy.
If you recall, Han defeated Holm in the initial encounter at the beginning of the year after their fight was stopped in the seventh round due to an inadvertent clash of heads (recap here), which resulted in a cut on Han’s forehead, prompting the officials
on duty to put an end to the action. Once the scores were tallied Han was given the technical decision win by the judges.
Fast forward five months and this time the fight did go the distance, and Han was once again declared the victor after she was awarded a majority decision with two judges scoring the fight 96-94 in her favor, while the other scored it even at 95-95. That said, there were many who felt the judges got it absolutely wrong since Holm’s output was greater to the point that even ESPN analyst and fellow women’s boxing champion, Mikaela Mayer, felt Holm had done enough to win the belt.
“I love Stephanie Han, I think she’s an awesome champion, I think she’s a great person. But I have to be honest and I do think that Holly Holm had a much stronger fight,” Mayer said after the fight (via Bad Left Hook).
“She made more adjustments, she pushed it when she had to, she kicked it into that second and third gear in moments throughout the 10 rounds. That’s really important in a championship fight. If I were her, I would be disappointed, too, with the decision. I would be expecting to get my hand raised.”
Naturally, Holm wad disappointed after feeling she won the fight 100-percent.
“Honestly, I feel like I won that fight,” Holm said. “There’s always things, even in a win, that I want to do better always. We always want perfection. But I really feel I won the fight, so — and that’s not any disrespect to Han at all. I have a lot of respect for her, it had nothing to do with that, I just felt that fight was mine,” she added before talking about her future in boxing.
“I want to keep fighting if it’s fair, kind of. It’s still a little disheartening sometimes when you put a lot of work in. I have dreams in this sport and everything, and it’s just kind of frustrating sometimes. I just felt like I was dictating the pace, I felt like I was landing clean shots. It’s a fight, I’m not saying that she never hit me, but I definitely did more in the fight and I should have had the win.”
To add further fuel to the fire, Han — who improves to 13-0 with her second win over Holm — was born and raised in El Paso, site of the rematch. Afterward, Han called out WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO, IBO, and The Ring Light Welterweight champion, Katie Taylor.
Check out some of the highlights:
In the co-main event of the evening, Amanda Serrano retained her WBA and WBO Featherweight titles rather easily by knocking out Cheyenne Hanson in the second round. Check out the stoppage win below:
With the stoppage win, Serrano made history by tying Christy Martin’s knockout record for female boxers at 32. Serrano has a chance to make even more history by breaking the record in her next fight, and current WBA, IBF, WBO, & The Ring Super Featherweight champion, Alycia Baumgardner, jumped on the opportunity to call for the fight.
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