Kevin Holland was a winner on Dana White’s Contender Series earlier this year, but he didn’t initially win over the man for whom the event is named.
“He’s a talented guy and he won his fight, but he wouldn’t shut up. The entire fight he was talking to me – the whole fight,” White said at the UFC 227 post-fight press conference… This guy comes in and is talking s—t the entire fight. So I said, ‘I’m not signing this guy. I don’t want him; I’m not interested.’”
Holland defeated Will Santiago Jr. via unanimous decision at the UFC Training Center on June 12 for his fourth consecutive win, but the UFC president was true to his word.