It won’t be long before Kevin Holland starts wearing a cape on a full-time basis.
The veteran UFC fighter, who helped apprehend in a gunman in March and chased down an alleged carjacker this past October, once again came to the rescue in his adopted home state of Texas after witnessing a tractor-trailer overturn on the highway.
“There’s a guy who flipped an 18-wheeler, I got out and I helped that guy,” Holland said on The Fighter vs. The Writer when asked about his latest heroics. “Other than that, nothing else has happened.”
A tractor-trailer accident might seem almost pedestrian considering how Holland has been willing to confront potentially violent criminals, but he reacted instantly after witnessing the accident in real-time.
“I’m driving the Regal, the old school, kind of like my Batmobile,” Holland explained. “Everyone knows Batman is my favorite character, that’s probably why I intervene in all of these things. I’m driving down the road, enjoying some good old 80s and 90s music, just cruising. It’s fast but it’s cruising, and then I look over to the right hand side and this guy looked like he was trying to get on the freeway pretty quick.
“I looked back straight. I looked back to the right hand side and he’s sliding sideways. I’m like gosh. I pull the Regal over, glad I put the new brakes on there. Hopped out, ran over there, jumped on top, ripped the door open, got the guy out.”
According to Holland, the entrance ramp to the freeway was rather long, and it appeared the driver was picking up speed to join traffic that was already zipping down the road. That’s when the situation turned dire as the driver lost control, and the truck slid off the embankment before flipping over.
Holland has never batted an eye at chasing down an alleged carjacker or even a gunman, but he admits he was actually frightened for the first time when he jumped on top of the truck to retrieve the driver inside.
“I get the guy out, there’s fluids flowing out of the car, I get the guy out of the truck and I’m scared,” Holland said. “Every other time things have happened, I’ve been calm, cool and collected. This time, I’m scared. I’m like the truck’s going to blow up. The guy gets back in his truck! He’s like ‘I need my phone.’ I’m like bro, I got a second phone in the car, you don’t need your phone. We’ve got to go. He’s like ‘I’ve got to go get my s***.’
“So I help him get out the second time, and I’m like bro, we’ve got to go. He’s like, ‘I think I need something else out of the truck.’ I’m leaving. As I turn around, there’s a cop there and I’m like, ‘Hey, what’s going on? ‘He said, ‘You tell me what’s going on — who’s driving, you or him?’ I’m like no, no no, my car is down there. So that’s one of those situations, I should probably stay my ass in the car.”
Thankfully, Holland said there were no other vehicles involved in the accident with the tractor-trailer ultimately skidding off the road and crashing into the grass rather than swerving onto the freeway.
“He slid perfectly on the grass,” Holland said. “I think the dude fell asleep while trying to get on there. Who knows. I know how it is. I’m tired when I drive, too. I’ll be swerving. It happens.
“The guy was perfectly fine but all of a sudden when the officer pulled up he was [screaming]. I was like you’re playing.”
Holland has no idea why he continues to get into dangerous situations. He just knows he just can’t turn and walk away when there’s a chance he could help.
Set to return to action at UFC Austin on June 18, Holland revealed there’s another incident from his past that apparently trumps all of these situations. But he’s not planning on telling that story any time soon.
“I’ve got another situation that’s way more wild than that, I’ll never speak on it,” Holland teased. “Yeah, after that situation, I was like how do I keep getting put in these situations.
“When I was young, I wanted to be a superhero so you’ve got to be careful what you ask for. You ask for certain things and they start to happen and you wonder why these things are happening — you’ve got to be careful what you ask for.”
Rather than wear a cape, Holland has another idea for a new nickname that might just capture his constant ability to be the right place at the right time.
“What I’ve learned talking to a good friend of mine, she actually has a fight coming up, she said ‘my boy, when you do ratchet hood stuff, you take your glasses off,” Holland said. “When you do good stuff, you keep your glasses on. You’re reverse Clark Kent.’ I like that a lot so I might start calling myself Clint Kark.”
