Holloway wants to know why fans keep bugging him about his weight the Ilia Topuria fight, considering he’s never missed ‘and I ain’t planning on starting now.’
It’s been nearly five years since Max Holloway lost his featherweight title to Alexander Volkanovski in December 2019. After two more unsuccessful shots at “The Great,” Holloway is looking to get his 145 pound belt back against Ilia Topuria at UFC 308 on October 26th.
Holloway is on a three fight win streak, with his last win an impressive one at lightweight against Justin Gaethje at UFC 300. Few expected “Blessed” to perform as well has he did in that bout given how his last foray up to 155 — a largely one-sided whupping at the hands of Dustin Poirier — went.
Now everyone’s worried about how Max will cut back down to 145 after the time at 155.
“Everybody keeps talking about the weight coming into this fight,” Holloway said on his YouTube channel. “The whole question before the last fight was the weight, and now the whole question about this fight is the weight too because of what we did in the last one.”
“It is what it is. I got the best person behind me, my wife, she’s cheffing it up. And I got my man Tyler Minton back on the team, he’s going to be out there with us fight week and he’s one of the best guys in the biz.”
Minton has been Holloway’s nutritionist on and off since his championship years. Given their track record over the years, Holloway doesn’t quite understand why everyone is so concerned about this next featherweight cut.
“I’ve never missed weight,” he said. “I’ve never missed no weight in my whole career, and I ain’t planning on starting to miss weight for this fight. Because this fight? It took a whole lot of work to get back here you know.”
Max Holloway poses with his BMF belt in new post:
“Earned not bought.”
IG / @BlessedMMA #UFC #MMA #UFC308 pic.twitter.com/virTDS9Lyc
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) October 12, 2024
Some of that work was on display during the 15 minute YouTube video, which followed Holloway across a day’s training.
“The process is just fun, right? Getting ready for battle,” Holloway said. “I’ve been fighting for a world title again after so many years. That’s fun. You gotta be a psychopath to have fun in camp, it’s a tough road ahead but we love every step. It’s a love hate relationship, you got to love to hate the grind.”
UFC 308 goes down Saturday October 26th from Abu Dhabi, U.A.E., and features Ilia Topuria defending the featherweight title against Max Holloway. Also on the card: a special five round middleweight affair between Robert Whittaker and Khamzat Chimaev. Make sure you don’t forget this one starts early: prelims kick off at 10 a.m. ET while the main card starts at 2 p.m. ET.