LONGTIME RIVALS IN ‘LEGACY FIGHT’
Alexander Volkanovski already has beaten Max Holloway twice in UFC featherweight title fights, and that still wasn't enough to settle this rivalry.
That's a measure of the excitement generated by the first two bouts between these two electrifying strikers. It's also an illustration of the sport-wide respect for Volkanovski, the Australian with a 21-fight winning streak, and for Holloway, Hawaii's former 145-pound champ.
Along with being brilliant fighters, they're two wellliked guys in a sport with some unsavory characters.
Volkanovski and Holloway will go again at UFC 276 at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip tonight, each hoping to complete this trilogy with a statement victory.
“It's a legacy fight,” Holloway said. “We're on the higher end of the pound-forpound ranks, and these fights don't happen very often. People are calling us the main event of this card, and that's saying a lot about how good this fight is.”
The mixed martial arts promotion's biggest event of the summer is headlined by Israel Adesanya's fifth middleweight title defense against Jared Cannonier. The UFC's typically stacked Fourth of July weekend card also features Brazilian kickboxing star Alex Pereira against middleweight contender Sean Strickland, along with the returns of Robbie Lawler, Suga Sean O'Malley, Jim Miller and Uriah Hall.
But the most compelling matchup is Volkanovski (24-1) against Holloway (23-6), who held the featherweight belt from 2016 until
Volkanovski took it from him in December 2019 with a relentless tactical performance. Holloway lost to Volkanovski for the second time in July 2020 in Abu Dhabi in a razor-thin decision.
Not many rivalries stretch to three fights when the first two bouts weren't split, but this is no ordinary rivalry. Volkanovski has defended the belt twice since that second bout with Holloway, while Holloway outpointed Calvin Kattar and Yair Rodriguez in a pair of thrillers to stay in prime position to reclaim his belt.
“It's the biggest fight I could do right now,” Volkanovski said. “Everyone wants to see it, and that's it. I give him credit. He was stubborn. He goes, ‘Ain't no one taking that No. 1 contender spot from me.' He stood there and took out all the guys and didn't let them have a shot at me, and now he gets the shot. Good on him. That's exactly what I would do in the same situation.”
While Holloway and Volkanovski trade verbal jabs like any top contenders, there's a clear respect between the two best featherweights in UFC history not named Jose Aldo. Holloway has been gracious about his second loss while making sure nobody thinks he agreed with the decision in which he out-landed the champion in each of the first three rounds and then fought a tenacious fifth.