Ring Magazine was criticized by boxing purists for putting Ronda Rousey on the cover back in October. That ire has only intensified after Rousey lost to Holly Holm, who just so happens to be a former multi-time championship boxer.
Boxing promoter Lou DiBella was the latest to get his jabs in Saturday night following an event headlined by Daniel Jacobs and Peter Quillin at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. DiBella bashed the magazine, not only for putting Rousey on the cover, but ignoring Holm when she was the best female boxer in the world, too.
"If I was Ring Magazine, maybe I would have put Holly Holm on the cover before she won," DiBella said at the post-fight press conference (h/t CNG's Joseph Staszewski for passing along the quotes). "And talked about her story and maybe why she had a chance and what she accomplished in boxing that they didn't pay attention to for her whole career."
Holm, 34, did win Ring's female boxer of the year honor twice a decade ago. She was a three-division boxing champion and sported a record of 33-2-3 before making the transition to MMA.
Last month at UFC 193 in Australia, Holm knocked out Rousey in the second round with a head kick to win the UFC women's bantamweight title. Coming in, Holm was a sizable underdog. Rousey, 28, had dispatched each of her last four opponents in less than 65 seconds.
Rousey is a former Olympic bronze medalist in judo, but has trained hard in boxing for the past five years with Edmond Tarverdyan at Glendale Fighting Club in Los Angeles. Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya said in October that he had spoken with Rousey about promoting her if she made the transition to boxing. Golden Boy Enterprises owns Ring Magazine.
DiBella, who promotes Danny Jacobs and has promoted the likes of Bernard Hopkins and Sergio Martinez in the past, said he won money betting on Holm. He said he felt Holm had all the physical advantages against Rousey.
"Holly Holm, if you ever watched the tapes of her fights, that girl could fight -- seriously box," DiBella said. "You saw a little bit if you saw her kick the sh*t out of Rousey in whatever the length of that fight was.
"Actually watch her in a boxing match and she was a very skilled lady."