Conor McGregor suffered a gruesome injury during his 2013 meeting with Max Holloway, and let out a scream that shocked his rival.
Nowadays, it would be established that if an injury was enough to cause a fighter to scream out in agony, the fight would likely be stopped. But over a decade ago, as McGregor and Holloway did battle the pair were able to carry on.
The Irishman ultimately went on to win the fight, but ended up being out for over a year afterwards and arguably never fully recovered. He reinjured the same spot for his fight with Chad Mendes two years and three fights later, and has since been mired by injuries in his later career.
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Max Holloway recalls Conor McGregor’s ‘startling’ scream in fight
In the early exchanges of Max Holloway and Conor McGregor’s fabled 2013 fight, the Irishman showed off his vintage striking and seemed to be dominating the young Hawaiian. However, everything changed during a wrestling exchange in the second.
McGregor turned awkwardly and tore his ACL, which Holloway recalls led him to make a blood curdling scream that made him temporarily check out from the fight. “The scream was like a painful scream,” he told CBS Sports.
“He said ‘keep fighting’ but if he did ask to stop fighting I guess I probably would have won by TKO because he would have got off holding his knee. I don’t know. In a different world it would have been crazy.
“I never thought about it like that because you know when you’re with your friends messing around doing something stupid and one of your friends goes ‘ahh’? It’s just instinct to be like ‘woah, are you okay?’ That’s just what it was.
“I heard it and it kind of startled me, so I was like ‘bro you good?’ It was more of a startling than anything. I don’t know what I would have said after that. Being a fighter to win the fight I probably should have attacked the knee some more, I don’t know.”
Max Holloway now faces Dustin Poirier in UFC 318 main event
Since that day, both McGregor and Holloway went on to become legendary featherweight world champions. The Irishman dethroned Jose Aldo in 2015, before Holloway beat the Brazilian twice to cement himself as one of the all-time greats at 145lb.
However, one man who has had both of their numbers is Dustin Poirier. In five fights between Poirier and McGregor or Holloway, the score is 4-1. But the Hawaiian has the chance to fix that on Saturday night as he defends his BMF belt at UFC 318 in New Orleans.
The event has been built around Poirier, but Holloway is keen to spoil the party and secure his first victory in three efforts against the Louisiana native in his home state.