Max Holloway Contemplates Permanent Move to Lightweight After UFC 308

Max Holloway is considering a move up to lightweight for good after his loss to Ilia Topuria at UFC 308.

Holloway suffered the first knockout loss of his career in a failed featherweight title bid against Topuria in the main event at UFC 308 on Saturday at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. “Blessed” appeared to be getting ahead on the scorecards when Topuria caught him against the cage in signature fashion to land the devastating knockout blow in the third stanza.

This was Holloway’s third failed bid to reclaim the strap after losing it to Alexander Volkanovski in 2019. Outside of Volkanovski and Topuria, Holloway has wiped out almost the entire old guard of the featherweight division. With an 0-3 head-to-head record against Volkanovski and the failed bid against Topuria, Holloway feels there is little left for him to do at 145 pounds.

Meanwhile, Holloway earned his latest shot with an iconic BMF title win against Justin Gaethje in a lightweight clash at UFC 300 this past April. While the Hawaiian is not rushing into decisions just yet, he believes lightweight is the way to go moving forward. Although Holloway has the chance of fighting exciting young featherweights like Diego Lopes or Movsar Evloev, the caliber of names at 155 pounds seems more appealing to the former featherweight champ.

“We’re all gonna sit down with the team, relax. There’s nothing needed to be rushing back right now,” Holloway said at the post-fight press conference. “Probably I’ll come back summer, big July card, right, in Vegas – do something. We’ll see what happens, I mean [155 pounds] looks really good right now… I’m gonna sit down with my team, we’ll see… I had the best [145-pound] cut here, but I mean, what else is there to do? I had a couple of times to reclaim it. New guys coming up, yeah that would be fun. But ’55 looks more fun as fighting just more [for] the caliber and everyone there and the names there look really exciting to put my name in the mix.”