Max Holloway has not ruled out a future move to the lightweight division but remains focused on featherweight for now.
Has Max Holloway considered a permanent move up to the lightweight division since his third loss to Alexander Volkanovski? With few paths back to the title until Volkanovski’s reign ends, this has been one of the biggest questions surrounding Holloway since his July 2022 loss to “The Great” at UFC 276, which put him down an 0-3 hole in his series with the current champ. These questions only intensified following Holloway’s recent victory over Arnold Allen at UFC Kansas City.
Holloway revealed on The MMA Hour that a move to 155 pounds hasn’t been the UFC’s focus in his conversations with promotion officials since the Volkanovski trilogy bout. “I think if UFC really wanted it at ‘55, they would’ve pushed the issue. They really didn’t, so at the end of the day, we’re here,” explained Holloway. “It’s always good to go up a weight class with a belt, so that’s the plan. And if they thought so — that maybe we couldn’t do a fourth [fight] with Volk — I think they would’ve really pressed the issue on us and told us, ‘Look, you’ve got to go.’ But we’re here, they’re feeding me contenders. So at the end of the day, we’re going to just keep knocking them down.”
Holloway, who is 31, made a brief detour to 155 pounds in April 2019 when he paused his featherweight title reign to jump upwards and challenge Dustin Poirier for the interim UFC lightweight title at UFC 236. He lost that fight in a competitive unanimous decision, then returned down to 145 pounds to successfully defend his title once more against Frankie Edgar before losing his belt to Volkanovski in December 2019. Ever since, Holloway has been stuck playing spoiler to the division’s other top contenders, fending off challenges from Calvin Kattar, Yair Rodriguez, and Allen as the world’s most overqualified gatekeeper in his ongoing pursuit to reclaim his featherweight strap.
Despite his focus remaining on 145 pounds, Holloway isn’t ruling out a move to lightweight in the future, even guaranteeing it will happen before his UFC run is done. “One-hundred percent [it’ll happen]. Why not? We’ll see what happens with [Volkanovski] when they’re fighting in July now with Yair. I think a lot of people are counting out Yair. I think it’s going to be a much more interesting fight than a lot of people think it is. We get to be a fan that night, so I’m excited.”