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Phil and David breakdown everything you need to know about Max Holloway vs. Frankie Edgar for UFC 240 in Edmonton, and everything you don’t about the Jaws sequels.
Max Holloway vs. Frankie Edgar headlines UFC 240 this July 27, 2019 at the Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
One sentence summary
Phil: One last question for the answer
David: Coup & Melee
Stats
Record: Max Holloway 20-4 | Frankie Edgar 23-6-1 Draw
Odds: Max Holloway -350 | Frankie Edgar +290
History / Introduction to the fighters
David: Hollo At Ya Boy has been a fan favorite for a long time. Not only has he managed to fight in a crowd-pleasing, bone-crunching style with no apologies, but he’s done it all against the type of quality of competition that would get most people killed. For that reason, Holloway is a paragon of what we value most. Full of grace, and fury — Max is must-see tv. Perhaps the most pressing question is whether or not Holloway’s pace will eventually catch up to him. It’s hard to point at the Dustin Poirier fight and say “see what I mean” when he was fighting above his weight class against a fighter entering his metaphysical prime. But it’s not hard to imagine how without a legit breather — whether it’s a lengthy break from MMA, or just adding some ham and egg(er) to his cage diet — Holloway will struggle sooner rather than later.
Phil: Holloway was put through one of the hardest grinders a young fighter could be on his way up. Recruited at an absurdly young age, he had to learn how to be a UFC-caliber fighter essentially on the job. Fighting Dustin Poirier just after his 20th birthday, in his UFC debut, with a strength of schedule which didn’t slacken much afterwards. Improbably, Holloway was neither smashed or discouraged, and instead seemed to thrive on the pressure. A ten(!) fight streak got him the shot at Aldo, and since then he’s been one of those rare champions who has pretty much done what he said he would: seek out new challenges, and defend. This is the second one of those.
David: Edgar’s success reminds me of a rich self-help guru. Swimming in the generalized world of Advice — typically chained entirely to financial goals, and other broad money ambitions — you’re not really sure what keeps them afloat other than some mercurial sense of ‘market demand’ from people who feel like a living, sweating version of what happens when you click your image tab after typing the word ‘motivation’ in your web browser. None of this is to connect Edgar to the Business of Talking At You. Just that Edgar’s game is so generalized on the surface, you’re never quite sure where his momentum comes from. It just sort of happens. It’s been over a decade since he let his knee get nailed to the Tyson Griffin cross. Yet each time we think he’s done, he builds new momentum.
Phil: Frankie Edgar is a quieter company man than many others, but I think an underrated element of his success has been that he is a company man nonetheless. Taking ostensible no-win matchups like the Swanson rematch? Stepping in for a season of TUF and spending some of his precious remaining prime, for a third (and utterly pointless match) against Tippy-toes BJ? The combination of being willing to step in when the bosses need you to and being a stone-cold badass and comeback machine tends to play well with the brass. Edgar has gotten a fair few title shots, but in general I feel like he doesn’t belong with the Fabers and Holms of the world. He’s a true quality fighter, a genuine P4P talent who has evolved with the times. With that being said, this does feel like something of a final chance at hold.
What’s at stake?
David: Edgar’s been working towards a moment where his legacy wasn’t bound and wound in Dana White’s interim-happy red tape. Maybe this is finally it.
Phil: Another excellent win on Holloway’s already phenomenal resume. Alternatively, a chance for Edgar to author one of the best late-career resurgences we’ve seen, and take a belt at what most consider to be his natural weight class.
Where do they want it?
David: Holloway is a fighter of pugilism pace, and punishing prosperity. His success has been built on the natural progression of a pressure striking game that just might be the best in the business. Unlike a lot of successful fighters who were always really good at one thing, or reinvented their game, Holloway has refined his top(combination striking)-down(everything else) approach with an impenetrable sprawl and clinch work. His movement — which already maximizes his fantastic poke, prodding, and obliterating method of punch traffic — allows him simple, concise pivots to form the pillar of what makes him so special. A lot of fighters know how to pressure. Fewer fighters continue to pressure at angles, or backing away. Even fewer do so with so many knuckle options at their disposal. One-two’s (RIP, Aldo), left hooks (Poirier got cracked pretty good by one of those as Holloway was getting cornered by a vicious attack), and straight rights: Holloway is a wheelhouse boxer with grit for days.
Phil: Holloway is a constant, wearing presence. Edgar was one of the earliest fighters to really weaponize pace, but even he had large amounts of just skittering around on the outside, of giving the opponent a chance to gain their breath. No-one said it was easy, but an Edgar fight was typically one of bursts and pauses. A Holloway fight is one where the Hawaiian is punching the other man, constantly. When he was first touted as a prospect, people suggested him as a combination Diaz and Pettis but this does a disservice to his footwork: he brilliantly combines lateral movement with off-beat angled entries, probing and drawing out even as he keeps a constant light rain of punches on his opponents. His takedown defense and ground game evolved at a shockingly quick rate, and while he may not have quite the pivot and explosion of Jose Aldo, his probing jab allows him to feel entries coming in like sonar, and attack grips and the clinch.
David: Edgar could have been just another wrestle-boxer: fighters that get by on steady upright violence, relying more on continuity than dynamism. The problem with this archetype is one of demographics; a lot of fighters who fit into this archetype fit too well. They’re not designed for much else. Moreover, a lot of these guys tend to be bulky, supported more by strength and mechanics than speed, and innovation. Edgar is the outlier. Light on his feet, the two dominant aspects of his game happen suddenly, which defines MMA more than anything else besides the lazy nu-metal guitar riffs that open the show. Because of this, the transitions happen quicker, and cleaner. There’s no prolonged huffing and puffing inside the clinch. There’s no posturing. Just the sudden efficiencies of Edgar darting in and out with strikes — enabled well by his ability to feint with strikes as well as takedowns — knee taps, single legs, and doubles. Within that is a bold presence. Previously, Edgar would slow down in top control. His grappling just couldn’t match the workrate and speed of his striking. Now he’s managed to marry the two. He’ll never be mistaken for a baby Fedor, but he does an objectively better job of being heavier on top without getting stiff, and lifeless. He also just flat out works his damn ass off.
Phil: Edgar, like Holloway, has a game which expands outwards from a few early openings. Unlike Holloway, and in a way which may be something of an issue, Edgar’s true quality comes a few layers deeper. Fights start on the feet, and so Holloway can always automatically find himself in his strongest area. Edgar, conversely, does his best work from top position, where he is a small, immovable anvil who gradually grinds his opponent to dust. To get there he has a flickering set-up jab to get his opponent to react, until Edgar can throw the right hand. This may be a body shot, an overhand, a knee-tap or a double leg, and they all look pretty much the same. Start to obviously react to one of these options, and the others will start to pile up. As I discussed with Connor on this week’s Heavy Hands, Edgar is a somewhat rote fighter, in both good ways and bad. “Rote” often translates to “coachable,” and Edgar often comes in with clear gameplans. He is one of the few fighters who diligently moves his head after he throws… but this has occasionally translated into him constantly slipping into the same shot. Most notably that uppercut which stalked him through both Maynard fights until it finally caught him unawares against Ortega, as inexorable as the shark from Jaws IV chasing down the Brody family. OK, maybe a bit more inexorable than that.
Insight from past fights
Phil: I was trying to think of who the best offensive wrestler that Max has fought was and I think the answer is… Charles Oliveira? He’s really tremendously underrated as a pure takedown threat and he barely laid a hand on Max. He was taken down by both Ortega and Poirier, which indicates that he isn’t a bulletproof Aldo-level anti-wrestler, but it’s also notable that both men are extraordinarily dangerous in grappling situations and neither really got anything done at all. So while he hasn’t fought a wrestler on the level of Edgar, I think the signs are good that he can shake him off.
David: It’s rare that a common enemy’s traits so explicitly reveal a key to victory, but over the last five years, the most meaningful tactic anybody has successfully employed against Edgar was Aldo’s ability to teleport away from Edgar’s punch entries. I don’t believe there’s a single fighter in the game, past or present, who has ever had Aldo’s ability to pivot and shift out of attack zones with such speed and finesse. Except for the first Gray Maynard fight (which happened over a decade ago), Edgar has never been neutralized on the feet like this. Again, save for Aldo. Holloway’s movement is elite in the way it channels a lot of his striking efficiency, but as subtle defensive tactics that yield positive dividends? I don’t think so.
X-Factors
Phil: Quite a few. I can’t say I’m not concerned about Holloway returning to featherweight, particularly after his Khabib “concussion-like symptoms” episode and his brutal war with Poirier. On the other hand, Edgar has had a long, tough career filled with grueling fights, and his win over Swanson did not inspire confidence.
David: The only reason I don’t think wear and tear is a factor is because their respective games won’t clash as violently. For all of their activity, they’re craftsmen first and foremost. I expect attrition to take the form of strategy and tactics rather than velocity and force. They’re well suited for this.
Prognostication
Phil: Holloway seems like something of a nightmare for Edgar. The New Jersey fighter has a tendency to move his head predictably, and shifting people into strikes is Holloway’s whole deal, and head movement was something he was able to exploit against a far more skilled defensive fighter in Aldo. He has a huge reach, youth and (presumably) durability advantage, and should be able to pelt Edgar with jabs and one-twos on the entry. Edgar is going to need to hit and hold takedowns early, or hit the triple jab into overhand of his career. Max Holloway by TKO, round 3.
David: Fools. The lot of you. I love Holloway as much as the rest of you, and I just compared part of Edgar’s success to something I despise. Here’s the thing. I think a lot of Holloway’s potential success is tied in his ability to jab. On paper, he can do this against Edgar. But succeeding with the jab against Aldo is not the same as it is against Edgar. Aldo is the better fighter, and the better striker. But he’s passive on his backfoot, and his movement is restricted to defensive maneuvers and attack spurts. As long as Edgar can traverse the check hook, and Holloway’s outbursts, I see his wrestling as largely neutralizing some of Holloway’s fundamentals. Even the sheer size discrepancy might limit Max’ options to the body. I just think Edgar has a lot of inroads — the stiff arm single leg, the straight right, the lateral movement — that he build on, ultimately requiring Holloway to take the fight in moments rather than by entire roads. Plus I think analysts are understating who often Edgar will be able to find takedowns (especially early). I’ll play the village idiot on this one. Frankie Edgar by Decision.