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Ilia Topuria doesn't think Max Holloway has been fighting at the right weight class all this time.
(Exclusive) Max Holloway Talks Absent BMF Belt vs. Ilia Topuria
At UFC 308, BMF titleholder Holloway returns to the 145lb division to reclaim what was once his, the UFC Featherweight Championship, taken away from him by Alexander Volkanovski in 2019. After falling to Volkanovski twice more and running through a murderer's row at featherweight, Holloway would turn his sights to the weight class above: lightweight.
That was where Holloway would beat the brakes off of the second BMF champion Justin Gaethje at UFC 300. Many had doubted Holloway's chances, considering he lost at 155 on short notice against Dustin Poirier years prior, but "Blessed" came to play, putting on a performance of a lifetime, knocking Gaethje out cold in the final second of their five-round war.
Thumbs Down From Topuria
Jaws were dropped from the nosebleeds to cageside and despite his initial viral reaction to Holloway's thunderous knockout, Ilia Topuria claims he wasn't all that impressed with what he saw.
"If you take apart the last 10 seconds of the fight, I don't think it was a amazing fight," Topuria told Kevin Iole in a recent interview. Something that's [like] one of the greatest fights in the UFC history or mixed martial arts history... I don't think so."
Talking to Topuria, MMA journalist Iole factored in the narrative that Gaethje was going to be "too big" and "too strong" for Holloway as some pundits predicted, adding on to what made their fight so entertaining, the threat of danger and the odds stacked against Holloway.
Topuria On Holloway: "In Reality, He Belongs To The 155 Division"
Though, Topuria says otherwise, claiming the 5'11" Holloway should have been fighting lightweights like Justin Gaethje to begin with.
"In reality, Max Holloway is bigger than Justin Gaethje," Topuria continued. "The only thing that he cuts more weight than him. But in reality, he belongs to the 155 division. He's very tall. He's not that skinny [like] people imagine. In reality, he's a 155 fighter.
"So it didn't surprise me at all, to be honest," the featherweight champion said of Holloway's KO of Gaethje. "I don't know what to tell you about that... he was fighting in his division."
Max Holloway is often times the taller fighter in his featherweight bouts, standing four inches taller than next opponent Ilia Topuria. Still, Holloway has not missed the featherweight limit once, aiming to make championship weight at 145lbs in his move back down from the lightweight division at UFC 308.
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