Max Holloway had to call in the big guns over a dispute with Reebok about the Hawaiian flag.
Holloway appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience following his loss to Alex Volkanovski at UFC 245. “Blessed” told Rogan about the conflict with Reebok soon after they launched their first fighter kits in 2015.
“They wasn’t going to let me walk out with the Hawaiian flag,” Holloway said of Reebok. “When I first started doing it. Cause that’s when the Reebok came out. I couldn’t put Hawaiian flag on my shorts or anything. So I was like, ‘I’m going to walk out with the flag.’ Reebok was stopping it. They were like, ‘you can’t because it’s a state flag.’
The former featherweight champion went on to explain that Reebok, at the time, would only approve flags of nations for walkouts. State flags were completely off limits.
“Dana had to approve me walking out with my flag,” Holloway shared. “I was like, ‘nah, we’re going to talk to Dana…’ Dana texted me and said, ‘That’s stupid as s—t kid, just walk with it.’”
Holloway (21-5) successfully defended his UFC featherweight title on three occasions. Volkanovski (21-1) has expressed interest in a rematch.
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