Max Holloway‘s top choice for a fight before the end of his UFC career would be a rematch with Conor McGregor, despite the weight difference between them.
At the age of 31, Max Holloway still has plenty of time left in his MMA career. Holloway demonstrated this earlier this month when he ended the undefeated octagon run of Arnold Allen in masterful fashion at UFC Kansas City. The win moved his record to 17-0 against featherweights not named Alexander Volkanovski since 2014, proving once again that “Blessed” remains one of the best fighters in the world despite falling short three times to the current UFC champ. Afterward, Holloway reaffirmed his commitment to pursuing an eventual fourth fight at 145 pounds against Volkanovski.
In a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Holloway was asked if a fourth shot at Volkanovski would be his top choice for a fight before his UFC career is over. “I think so long as Volk’s fighting and I’m fighting, and I’m doing what I’m doing and he’s doing what he’s doing, I’m sure the fourth [fight] is going to line up somewhere,” Holloway explained. “I don’t know if it’s at ‘45, I don’t know if it’s at ‘55, I don’t know where it is — I think that fight is very reachable. I think we’ll fight each other again down the line at some point, 100 percent. So at the end of the day, that’s not really far off.
However, Holloway also shared his desire to fight Conor McGregor, stating, “I was the only guy that took Conor to a decision at ‘45.” The two fighters initially met in 2013 before either had achieved true MMA stardom. Since then, Holloway and McGregor have gone on to become two of the UFC’s biggest names, with Holloway accumulating 13 straight victories and three defenses of the UFC featherweight title after his setback against McGregor, and McGregor establishing himself as the biggest star in MMA history en route to becoming a two-division UFC champion.
Despite the gulf between their current fighting weights, Holloway would be happy to make an exception to secure a potential rematch against “The Notorious.” “I know he wants to come back, but that’d be a fight that [would be] super interesting, super fun,” Holloway said. “A lot of a lot of questions. There’s a lot of unknowns, because we’re just two different fighters from who we were back then. And I think it’d be a fan favorite. I think a lot of fans would love that fight, a lot of fans have been asking for that fight, so we’ll see what happens. At the end of the day, it’s not even a weight thing, bro. I’ll fight him openweight, whatever — whatever the commission would tell us, just show up to the weight, bro.”