Even if he reclaims
UFC featherweight gold on Saturday, Max
Holloway might not be done in the lightweight division.
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Holloway will challenge reigning champion Ilia
Topuria for the 145-pound title in the UFC 308
headliner at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. That fight comes on the
heels of a successful venture to 155 pounds, where he knocked out
Justin
Gaethje to capture the BMF belt at UFC
300 this past April. Gaethje was regarded as one of the top
title contenders at lightweight before that defeat, which has
Holloway thinking about a potential matchup with current divisional
kingpin Islam
Makhachev. In 2018, “Blessed” was scheduled to face Khabib
Nurmagomedov in a lightweight title clash at UFC 223 before his
weight cut was determined to be unsafe by the New York State
Athletic Commission.
“You’ve got to do great things,” Holloway recently told Demetrious
Johnson on his YouTube channel. “We had that fight booked with
Khabib a while back. They call Islam the Khabib 2.0, so I want all
the taste, I want all the smoke. It’d be an honor to fight that guy
and try to etch my name in the history book. First thing’s first is
Ilia. If I had my choice why not? Why not be able to fight
Islam?
Topuria vs. Holloway Saturday at 2 PM ET on ESPN+. Order
Now!
“Islam never, ever wanted to fight me even when I was saying I was
coming up to [155]. After fighting the guy that he was supposed to
fight next, he still was saying, I don’t know why I would fight
him. But then recently his tone changed where he was like, Oh yeah,
if I can get past Topuria, he’d be open to fight me. I was like,
OK, that’s all we needed. We just needed that little crack in the
door. I’ll squeeze my way through the rest, don’t worry about
it.”
Makhachev is coming off his third successful lightweight title
defense, a fifth-round submission of Dustin
Poirier at UFC 302 on June 1. The 32-year-old Dagestani is
expected to face Arman
Tsarukyan next, though a date for that bout has yet to be
announced.