UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway has his sights set on his UFC return.
He was scheduled to make his next title defense against former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar at UFC 222 but had to put out due to injury.
If you recall, this bout was originally scheduled for the UFC 218 pay-per-view event. However, Edgar was forced to withdraw from the fight after suffering a broken orbital bone in training.
This led to Holloway fighting Jose Aldo in a rematch, which saw Holloway successfully retain his title with a grisly third-round TKO.
Then Max Holloway was supposed to be the savior of the upcoming UFC 223 pay-per-view event once Tony Ferguson vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov, which was the original main event for the lightweight title, was scrapped after Ferguson pulled out with an injury.
Holloway told Ariel Helwani of The MMA Hour that he hopes the promotion goes through with booking him against Brian Ortega next.
“Dana called me on fight day and told me, ‘It’s alright, kid, we tried’ and ‘thank you for trying everything’ and ‘onto the next one’. So Brian Ortega is up, hopefully we can get on that July card,” Holloway told Ariel Helwani on the latest episode of The MMA Hour.
“I’ve been asking. I see everyone talking about that July card. I’ve got to get back business at 145, but if UFC call again for 155 for that thing with Khabib, that would be fun.”
“Dana said it was the best shot, he said that I have business to handle with Ortega. He didn’t say a date, but hopefully it’s July. I want to fight in July so I can go back to New York and try this one more time,” Holloway said.
“Madison Square Garden, we’ve got to try this one more time, that’s what I want to do. Fans are talking about it, I hear you guys want this fight a lot and they were tweeting me right after I got pulled. A lot of guys were saying, ‘Let’s see that fight [Holloway vs. Ortega] back on UFC 226.”
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