Germaine de Randamie is officially the UFC women’s featherweight champion.
The New York State Athletic Commission has denied Holly Holm’s appeal of her controversial loss to de Randamie earlier this month in Brooklyn, N.Y, MMAFighting.com confirmed.
“After a review of the video footage of the bout, the New York State Athletic Commission determined that there was no clear error or violation of statute or rule by Referee Todd Anderson,” an NYSAC official told MMAFighting.com. “Therefore, the scoring and outcome of the bout will not be modified.”
Holm, who lost a controversial unanimous decision to de Randamie in the UFC’s inaugural women’s featherweight title fight on Feb. 11, officially filled a complaint against referee Todd Anderson and an appeal of the result days after the loss.
The former boxing champion asked the New York State Athletic Commission to review Anderson’s “failure to deduct one or more points from Germaine de Randamie following her repeated strikes thrown after the horn sounded to end Rounds 2 and 3,” the complaint stated.
Anderson failed to separate Holm and de Randamie in a timely manner after the horn sounded in both the second and third rounds in the UFC 208 main event, leading to de Randamie landing three punches (two after the second and one after the third) after the rounds’ conclusion. The punches landed after the second round, in particularly, seemed to have hurt Holm.
“We respect their decision and will not seek anything further, except a rematch from Germaine,” Holm’s agent Lenny Fresquez told MMAFighting.com.
Following her victory, de Randamie has repeatedly said she would like to grant Holm an immediate rematch, however, the UFC has yet to officially decide what they’ll do next. It is also still unclear how long de Randamie’s injured hand will keep her sidelined.
Holm, who said on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour that she didn’t expect the commission would overturn the result, would also like to fight de Randamie again.
“I’m not trying to be like a wuss about it and whine,” Holm said. “That’s definitely not what I’m trying to do. I think that’s a hard spot for me. A lot of people keep saying, well, she hit you after the bell, how do you feel? Well, I’m a fighter. I’m not going to sit here and whine about it and complain. There’s a lot of things I could have done.
“At least own it. She knows she did it on purpose and one of them definitely rocked me.”