There are a lot of fun fights waiting for Max Holloway in the UFC lightweight division.
The BMF champion shocked the world when he moved up from the featherweight division and knocked out Justin Gaethje to win the BMF title at UFC 300.
Holloway is 1-1 as a lightweight, having lost a short-notice unanimous decision to Dustin Poirier in 2019. This snapped a 13-fight win streak for Holloway and crushed his dreams of becoming a two-division champion.
Now, Holloway gets the chance to avenge the loss in a trilogy bout with Poirier at UFC 318 on July 19, in New Orleans, Louisiana.
While a rematch with new lightweight champion Ilia Topuria is the eventual goal for Holloway, a legendary referee says there is a better fight out there for ‘Blessed’ post Poirier.
John McCarthy claims Dan Hooker is Max Holloway’s ‘best overall fight’ at lightweight
‘Big’ John McCarthy has proposed a potential BMF title fight between Holloway and the always-exciting Dan Hooker.
Hooker is currently ranked #7 in the UFC lightweight division and has won four out of his last five fights at lightweight, with his only loss to former champion Islam Makhachev.
Hooker has three fight-of-the-night bonuses, one from his last win against top contender Mateusz Gamrot at UFC 305. He also has a fight-of-the-year contender against Poirier from 2021.
“If I was gonna pick the guy that I think would bring out the best overall fight with Max, it’d be Dan Hooker,” McCarthy said on The Weighing In Podcast.
“Because Dan Hooker, he’s a crazy animal who just keeps coming forward and throwing.
“His fight with Poirier is still one of the best damn fights. If you look at what was going on in that, it was just crazy. It’s just too bad it wasn’t in front of a crowd because they would have been going nuts.
“Is he the modern day, [Donald] ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone?” co-host Josh Thomson asked.
“Absolutely,” the veteran referee replied.
“Dan Hooker, he wants to fight everybody. I wanna fight next week. I wanna fight next month. I wanna fight, until he gets hurt, and then he’s smart enough to say hey, I gotta heal up.
“Cowboy’s the same thing on the mic, but then when he’s in the back, he’s like, why do I do this s—?
And then he goes out and he fights, and he fights great. They’re very similar. That’s what makes people really like Dan Hooker.”
John McCarthy says Arman Tsarukyan should fight Ilia Topuria next
Uncertainty is at the top of the UFC lightweight division.
There are three contenders seemingly in line for a title fight with the newly-crowned Ilia Topuria: Arman Tsarukyan, Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett.
At the post-fight press conference, UFC CEO Dana White said Tsarukyan needed to fight again for withdrawing from his UFC 311 main event against Islam Makhachev and also expressed his dislike for Pimblett’s face-off with Topuria and Gaethje threatening to retire if he wasn’t given a title fight.
Tsarukyan, the #1 contender, made championship weight as the official back-up fighter for the UFC 317 main event.
Despite White saying he needs to fight again, McCarthy believes Tsarukyan is deserving of a title shot with back-to-back wins over Charles Oliveira and Beneil Dariush.
“Tsaryukyan, he’s the guy that really deserves that next shot at the title,” McCarthy said.
“He made weight for being the alternate.
“I believe he’s going to get the next shot, but after that I could see Max,” McCarthy added.