Max Holloway has made a request to the UFC ahead of his trilogy fight against Dustin Poirier at UFC 318 later this month.
On July 19, Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier are set to clash for a third time when they meet at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans for the BMF title in the UFC 318 main event.
Ahead of their legendary trilogy fight, the main talking point is about how this will be Poirier’s final fight in the sport, and UFC boss Dana White has labeled him as an ‘all-time great’ having built the entire event around him.
Holloway will be hoping to buck the trend of their first two fights as Poirier is 2-0 up against ‘Blessed’, having almost ripped his arm off in his UFC debut and then beating him for the interim title in 2019.
Max Holloway makes request to UFC ahead of UFC 318 clash
‘The Diamond’ has teased a potentially epic walkout is on the cards for his final walk to the cage on July 19, claiming that he will be walked out by rap legend, Lil Wayne.
However, the former UFC featherweight champion has made a slightly different request of the UFC ahead of their BMF title clash.
The Hawaiian has requested that he is removed from the featherweight rankings as he is bizarrely still ranked number one in the division despite making his permanent move up to 155lbs.
Holloway’s last clash at featherweight came against Ilia Topuria at UFC 308 when he was knocked out for the first time in his career.
“I don’t know what you guys are thinking keeping me number one contender there because that’s kind of ridiculous, I’m not going back to 145lbs, I’m over it and it feels good it feels great on them days where you go harder, being able to recover good with meals and eating a little more protein, it’s much better than just toughing it out,” Holloway told MMAJunkie.
“It’s ridiculous, I don’t understand. The rankings care but I don’t get it, the rankings are all over the place. We go back to the Gaethje fight and Gaethje was the number one contender when I fought him at 155lbs and he was what, ranked four or five at the time?
“I thought definitely when the rankings came out I wouldn’t come out at number nine, that’s just ridiculous… The rankings are all over the place,” he continued.
Holloway hoping to avoid bad luck in UFC trilogies
This isn’t the first trilogy Holloway will have been involved in throughout his UFC tenure as he and Alexander Volkanovski were involved in a classic trilogy at featherweight.
Unfortunately in that one, ‘Blessed’ went 0-3 against ‘The Great’ and he is looking to avoid that same outcome against Poirier.
“Making history is great, but I ain’t trying to be the man who fought two trilogies and went 0-3,” Holloway continued.