This weekend Max Holloway makes his return to Fight Island as he takes on Calvin Kattar in a pivotal featherweight showdown. The winner of their fight is likely to earn a shot at the title, which is currently being held by Alexander Volkanovski.
Holloway knows the champion very well, having spent the last 50 minutes of his cage time opposite the Australian. The pair first met at UFC 245 in December 2019, with Holloway defending his UFC featherweight title. After five rounds of action the judges unanimously scored the fight in favour of Volkanovski.
Holloway scored an immediate rematch with Volkanovski, which went down at UFC 251 in Abu Dhabi last July. That fight also went the distance, but was a closer affair. In the end the judges were split, but Volkanovski still got the win.
In his comments ahead of this weekend’s UFC on ABC: Holloway vs. Kattar Holloway expressed his belief that the judges got it wrong in his second fight with Volkanovski. That wasn’t the first time he’d said this. However, this time around ‘Blessed’ seemed to have a more zen attitude about the scorecards.
“It means a lot [that other people thought I won the fight],” said Holloway (per MMA Fighting). “That’s why the last fight, it’s hard to be mad about it. It’s hard to be mad about the last fight cause exactly what you said, 80 to 90 percent of the world thought I won the fight.
“It’s not just fans. It’s competitors. It’s guys like Nate [Diaz], Dustin [Poirier], Justin [Gaethje], Jorge [Masvidal], people like coaches, GSP’s coach [Firas Zahabi], ‘Big’ John McCarthy, the guy who made the rules. I ain’t too mad about it.”
During this recent chat Holloway also discussed open scoring. That’s something he’s supported in the past and continues to do so despite Dana White’s aversion to the topic.
“I know how I feel about open scoring and I heard how the boss man [Dana White] feels about open scoring,” Holloway said. “At the end of the day, that’s how they feel but that’s not going to shake my stance on it. We ended up going to Kansas and watching the Invicta fights and watching how it went down and a lot of questions was answered. The way that I thought it would affect the fight negatively, it really didn’t. It was cool. We’ll see what happens.”
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