T.J. Dillashaw knows what it means to be championship material and he doesn’t see it in Kevin Holland.
Dillashaw’s harsh criticism comes in the wake of Holland losing in lopsided fashion this past Saturday at UFC 311, where he was submitted inside of a round by Reinier de Ridder. In the bout, Holland struggled to deal with de Ridder’s grappling before eventually succumbing to a rear-naked choke.
Prior to that contest, Holland had appeared on the JAXXON podcast, where he was dismissive of his own chances of winning a UFC title. Dillashaw recently appeared on the same podcast to evaluate Holland’s performance against de Ridder and project his future.
“He’s fun,” Dillashaw said. “He’s entertaining, he’s fun. ... I heard him in here talking—I commented on one of the post you guys put out there about him not caring about being a champion, there’s too much politics in it—like, alright dude, that’s just an excuse because you’ll never be a champion. But he’s a very entertaining fighter. He talks a lot, but he will never be a champion, I promise you that.”
Dillashaw was an elite fighter for the majority of his UFC career, winning the bantamweight title in just his 12th pro bout. After defeating Renan Barao for the belt at UFC 173, he went on to win championship fights against Joe Soto, Barao again, and Cody Garbrandt across two reigns. However, his career wasn’t without controversy, as he was suspended for two years following a failed drug test in 2019.
The main issue Dillashaw has with Holland is that he doesn’t believe the highly active fighter is willing to improve his game, particularly on the ground where he is consistently outclassed.
“It’s the truth,” Dillashaw said. “He has some holes in his game and we see it here. He’s got a guy that’s on top of him and he keeps trying to hold him in his guard. Right now he’s going for attacks, it’s great, going for attacks, but when the attacks stop working, you’ve got to escape and get back to your feet, especially when you’re better on your feet. He doesn’t even try to put his feet on the hips and push off. You’ll see later, RDR’s above him, standing. He’s standing above him doing ground-and-pound and [Holland] is trying to hold on to guard rather than put the feet on the hips, get space and stand up.
“So that’s when I see, 101, doesn’t have the skills on the ground or the mindset to get back to his feet and keep the fight in his favor.”
Though Holland appears to be happy with signing contracts to fight anyone at any time regardless of the results, that doesn’t cut it with Dillashaw, who retired from competition in 2022. Dillashaw doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with Holland being content with where he’s at in his career, he just wants it to be clear that Holland won’t evolve beyond that anytime soon.
“You sat hear and let him say he doesn’t give a shit,” Dillashaw said. “Are you going to be a champion if you don’t care? No, you ain’t never going to be. You need to obsess about it every day of your life. You need to be OCD about training, about being the best, not losing one practice. He was talking about bringing training partners in, going home, and smoking weed. Just sitting here listening to him talk and watching his skills on TV, he doesn’t have the mindset for it. He’s just happy being on TV.”
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