Featherweight champion Ilia Topuria is making bold predictions and challenging Max Holloway to a brawl at UFC 308, but Holloway dismisses these tactics as attempts to build self-confidence, emphasizing that he wanted this fight to pursue the featherweight title and isn’t concerned with Topuria’s trash talk.
Featherweight champ Ilia Topuria has been making bold predictions for his fight at UFC 308. But Max Holloway? He’s not exactly biting on these so-called challenges.
Recently, Topuria declared he’d march to the octagon’s center and invite Holloway to trade blows. It’s a move Holloway famously used against Ricardo Lamas and later at UFC 300 against Justin Gaethje, resulting in a wild knockout.
Holloway thinks Topuria doesn’t get it. “The point down moment—it’s something you do towards the end of the fight,” he explained to MMA Fighting. “If things are going well, or the fight is entertaining, you give the other guy a shot.”
Topuria claims if Holloway meets him there, he’ll deliver a first-round knockout. Holloway doesn’t dismiss this—he knows both could end up flat on the canvas. Still, it’s risky for two top-tier fighters.
“The belt is called the ‘Blessed Man Forever’ or maybe ‘the baddest mother effer,’” Holloway said, referencing his BMF title win over Gaethje. “If it was the ‘DMF,’ then maybe I’d fall for it. But it’s not.”
“He talks about being a boxer—that’s not very much boxer IQ’ish of him,” Holloway added. Topuria’s challenge seems more like trash talk before UFC 308 than anything else.
Topuria also claimed Holloway didn’t want this fight but was forced into it after the UFC passed on a matchup with Michael Chandler. If he’s trying to mess with Holloway’s head, it’s not working—the Hawaiian just laughs.
“The first guy I called out [after UFC 300] was Topuria,” Holloway said. He finds it amusing since Topuria once said he wouldn’t fight without the BMF title on the line—and it’s not.
“So if anyone got forced into this, it looks like him,” Holloway quipped. After his stunning win over Gaethje, Holloway had options but wanted only one fight: Ilia Topuria at UFC 308.
“I wanted Ilia Topuria,” he stated simply. “I wanted the featherweight title.” Between now and Saturday night, Holloway expects more predictions from Topuria.
But none of that matters as long as Topuria brings his A-game—and that UFC title—to Abu Dhabi. “If that’s what he needs to get himself to the fight or through the fight, then so be it,” Holloway shrugged.
“Some people need that self-confidence boost,” he continued. “And if pumping his chest works for him, then that’s his thing.” You can’t deny—it’s gotten Topuria pretty far!