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Reigning Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight champion, Max Holloway, has won 14 straight fights in the 145-pound division (with 10 finishes) and was last seen turning away longtime veteran Frankie Edgar at UFC 240 back in July.
The last fighter to beat “Blessed” in the featherweight division is Conor McGregor in what marked just the second UFC fight for the power-punching Irishman. The result, handed down over six years back, was a unanimous decision win for “Notorious” followed by knee surgery.
Holloway doesn’t believe he’s seen the last of his former foe.
“If ‘Mystic Mac’ arrives, if he wants to be what he was a couple years ago when he was he was the best mixed martial artist in the world and he wants to do it again, I’m sure we’re going to run into each other or something like that,” Holloway said (transcribed by ESPN).
McGregor (21-4) is making his return to the Octagon in the welterweight division, fighting fellow lightweight import Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in the UFC 246 pay-per-view (PPV) main event on Jan. 18, 2019 inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“I’m excited that he’s back in the sport and can’t wait for him to do his thing in January,” Holloway said. “We’ll see if Conor comes. We’ll see if ‘Mystic Mac’ is back and the way he’s training. But we get to see that fight. So I wish him a great training camp and you know, I can’t wait to see him go back in there.”
Before Holloway (21-4) can think about rematching McGregor he must first defend his featherweight title against top division contender, Alexander Volkanovski, in the UFC 245 co-main event later this month in “Sin City” (more on that showdown here). What happens after that is hard to say, but I have a feeling McGregor is done with his 145-pound weight cut.