Even if he reclaims UFC featherweight gold on Saturday, Max Holloway might not be done in the lightweight division.
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?
UFC 308: 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.
