Former UFC featherweight champion and pound-for-pound great Max Holloway has been in some incredible back-and-forth wars across his 12 years competing inside the Octagon (like this one), racking up six “Fight of the Night” performance bonuses along the way.
But despite the violence “Blessed” has endured — against some of the hardest hitters in the game — the Hawaiian has yet to be knocked out in 32 professional fights. Justin Gaethje is hoping to end that streak when they hook ‘em up for the “BMF” belt at UFC 300 in April.
“I have 25 wins and 20 knockouts, I’m pretty proud of that,” Gaethje told ESPN. “That’s one thing I tried to sustain throughout my career, purposefully. So yeah, that’s something that I’m shooting for. Same thing with Tony Ferguson. Nobody had ever finished him. I didn’t knock him out in a traditional way, but I certainly created enough damage for that fight to be rightfully stopped. I would rather not get there [at UFC 300], I promise you that. This could be a war, a battle of attrition. If I can’t find him, then I can’t hurt him. He never stops. He’s constantly creating angles and constantly creating pressure and it could be a tough fight.”
The 35 year-old Gaethje (25-4) became the first fighter to stop Tony Ferguson as part of the UFC 249 pay-per-view (PPV) event back in May 2020, a beating so brutal that “El Cucuy” never recovered, losing his next six fights (getting finished three times along the way).
Holloway, 32, will be moving up to lightweight for the first time since his Dustin Poirier loss in the UFC 236 headliner back in April 2019. “Blessed” (25-7) is coming off a knockout victory over Chan Sung Jung at UFC Singapore last August.
For the rest of the UFC 300 fight card and pay-per-view (PPV) lineup click here.