Freddie Roach is quite familiar with Holly Holm's boxing credentials.
"Holly was a good boxer," Roach said of Holm, who meets Ronda Rousey in the main event of Saturday's UFC 193 in Australia. "She beat some good fighters, maybe they were a little older when she fought them, Mia St. John, but, she has some good wins."
But while Roach comes from a boxing background, he's not blindly allegiant to the Sweet Science, and he's not about to go picking against Rousey she and Holm collide.
"Female boxing never really caught on like Ronda Rousey has," said Roach, who helped school Rousey in boxing at his Wild Card gym in Hollywood early in Rousey's MMA career. "Ronda is just huge right now, and the thing is, she knows the ground game so much better than the boxing girl will."
Roach believes Holm has a fighting chance in the standup, given her wealth of boxing experience. MMA, though, involves so much more, so Roach doesn't expect Holm to have an answer for Rousey's world-class ground credentials.
"[Rousey's] not the best in the world [at boxing], but she's good, she's very competitive, she tries really hard," said Roach. "It's probably not the best thing she does, she probably better at ground game, but again, she's more experienced there. Her boxing is good, the girl she's fighting is a good boxer also. When they stand up it will be a good fight but when it goes to the ground she's going to destroy her."