Former UFC bantamweight champion Holly Holm recently underwent surgery to repair damage done to her left thumb in a loss to Valentina Shevchenko earlier this year.
Holm, who has now dropped each of her last two fights, is expected to be sidelined for the majority of 2016 that remains, according to her coach, Mike Winkeljohn.
“It will be towards the end of the year,” Winkeljohn told Submission Radio recently. “It will at least take that long. We haven’t even thought about it at this point or what’s next and we’ll see what unfolds.
“I’d like to see Holly get back to get a couple of wins and get a shot back at getting toward the biggest women in the division.”
Winkeljohn also discussed the chances of Holm facing Cris “Cyborg” Justino, a bout that was reported for Justino’s UFC debut earlier this year.
“It does not make sense at all this time. You know what, first off, they wanted Cyborg to fight in Brazil against Holly Holm and it doesn’t make sense right now to fight a bigger girl, out of your own weight division, in her home town, when you’re not known for knocking people out. So that’s not logical for starters, but does it not make sense at the moment. Holly would take the damn if I let her, cause she’ll fight anybody, but right now we just gotta get through fixing her thumb and let Cyborg come down to 135 and fight all these girls,” he said. “Oh at some point, yeah (they’ll fight). There’s no doubt about it. Cause Holly’s a fighter, that’s what she does. Cyborg’s got a lot of holes. She just hits really hard and she’s just bigger than the girls she fights. So it’s one of those things that, come down in weight and Holly’s got no problem fighting her.”
