Ilia Topuria wants to recreate Max Holloways’ famous UFC 300 moment at UFC 308. But ‘Blessed’ doesn’t think ‘El Matador’ understands what made it so special.
It’s been six months since Max Holloway won the BMF belt at UFC 300 by beating Justin Gaethje in the most BMF way possible. With less than a minute left on the clock, Holloway — who was already winning the fight handily — pointed down at the canvas, invited Gaethje to stand and trade, and then knocked him out with one second left.
Holloway is set to fight for Ilia Topuria’s featherweight title next at UFC 308 on Saturday, October 26th. He’s had some time to reflect over that magic moment at UFC 300 and how it’s spawned a bunch of copycats since.
“That’s what BMFs do,” Holloway said in a fireside interview with Megan Olivi. “I mean, if the shoe was on the other foot with Justin Gaethje, I believe he would’ve given me the opportunity to try to put his lights out. So I gave him the opportunity. And at the end of the day, my punches landed first. He was swinging. I was swinging. And I’m just happy my punch landed first.”
“To leave a mark like that in a in a sport that’s always growing is always amazing,” he said. And if you wanna keep on doing the point down but just remember guys, when you guys do the point down, it stay there and swing, not point down and take couple steps back, you know.”
There’s another important ingredient to the recipe as well, one that Max feels Ilia Topuria is missing. In the lead-up to their fight, Topuria challenged Holloway to stand and bang in the opening seconds of their title fight in Abu Dhabi.
“The point down moment — I don’t think he gets the gist of it,” Holloway said in an interview with MMA Fighting. “At the end of the day, the point down, it’s something that you do towards the end of the fight. If something is going good, if the fight is entertaining or you’re winning, you give the other guy a shot. The moment is the moment for a reason.”
“If the belt was the ‘DMF,’ the dumbest mother effer, then maybe I would get sucked into it,” he added. “It’s far from that. Like what I told you, and I told him, he talks about being a boxer — that’s not very much boxer IQ’ish of him. But we’ll see what happens.”