At UFC 318, Max Holloway will look to spoil one of his greatest opponents retirement fight.
Dustin Poirier is set for an emotional send-off on July 19 but of course, there’s a good chance that he walks away from the sport on the back of another loss.
While Holloway has questions of his own to answer after being stopped in his last fight, ‘Blessed’ doesn’t have the same kind of pressure on his shoulders ahead of this weekend.
He’s been booked in this matchup because he fits Poirier’s dream of facing a fellow legend of the sport in front of his home fans in Louisiana.
Dana White recently shut down any idea that he’ll have to grant Holloway the same treatment, even if the former featherweight champion already has a plan in mind.
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Max Holloway names Daniel Cormier and Ilia Topuria as the two opponents he’d want to face at UFC Hawaii
Max Holloway has been campaigning for a UFC event in his home of Hawaii for a long time but it looks no closer to happening at this stage.
Dana White said that just because ‘Blessed’ will be one half of Dustin Poirier’s ideal retirement scenario doesn’t mean that he will have to make the event finally happen to pay Holloway back.
When the current BMF titleholder was asked about what he would want for his dream event, the first box to tick off was UFC Hawaii.
Holloway went on to tell ESPN MMA about what the card would look like, having quickly inserted himself into the main event against a friend and foe that he’s regularly called out for some time.
Tasked with adding a co-main event to the card, he eventually decided that the best option would be to have him fight twice on the same night so that he could avenge his last defeat.
“Aloha stadium, UFC Hawaii. Me versus ‘DC’ [Daniel Cormier] main event of course. The world wants to see that. So if it’s a dream card, we got to give what the world wants.
“Then co-main event… I might have to go back-to-back. I might have to co-main event it and fight [Ilia] Topuria. Me versus Topuria 2, co-main, after that I go back, walk all the way back again and fight DC’s fat a–.”
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Max Holloway called out Daniel Cormier after recementing his status as the best featherweight in the world
At UFC 240, Max Holloway had a point to prove when defending his featherweight title for the third time.
Having just been beaten by Dustin Poirier up at lightweight, there were questions as to how that would impact him ahead of his return to 145 pounds.
Holloway answered those questions by dominantly beating Frankie Edgar before continuing his playful rivalry with Daniel Cormier when he was asked about competing in different divisions.
“Ay, if they need a heavyweight next week for ‘DC’, let me know. Daddest man on the planet, you’re gonna get it.”
While he has made jokes about Cormier for some time, Holloway naming Ilia Topuria as his other dream opponent shows how badly he wants to face the current champion in a rematch.