Max Holloway will have his UFC debut in his head while he prepares for Dustin Poirier on UFC 318.
Holloway was chosen as the last opponent of Poirier in the main event of UFC 318, because “The Diamond” ends his career by completing a trilogy of fighting against “blessed”.
The featherweight legends have been dominant in their division in the last one and a half decade and have demonstrated incredible fights with top names such as Conor McGregor, the Korean zombie and, of course, each other.
Their career has been entangled since the debut of Holloway, making him a suitable and moving choice to be the man who ends the legendary career of Poirier in Louisiana on July 19.
While both men became featherweights, Holloway did this despite the lost of Poirier in a shameful way during his UFC debut.
Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Dustin Poirier forced Max Holloway to tap in the 1st round of his UFC debut
The UFC debut from Holloway did not go as he wanted, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, he could not prepare for the fight in the ideal way, because Holloway was a late replacement to fight Poirier on UFC 143.
20-year-old Holloway replaced the wounded Ricardo Lamas, who himself had replaced the wounded Erik Koch, in the fight against the 12-1 Poirier.
The other way it didn't go the way Holloway wanted, was that the fight lasted only three minutes and almost ended with him who had broken his arm.
The more experienced Poirier dictated the pace and had an excited Holloway throw some major strikes before he took control of the fight.
He scored a huge Takedown just two minutes inside and Holloway finally struggled in position to lock an impressive -looking arm bar that threatened to break his arm in two.
Holloway quickly poked before real damage could be caused, because “the diamond” gave him a devastating loss over his UFC debut.
Fortunately, that would not be the end of the UFC career of Holloway.
Max Holloway became the most successful featherweight hunter in the UFC history
Holloway bounced back from his debut defeat to “The Diamond” by gaining countless victories and becoming the UFC -Fedweight champion
He won three fights in a row that loss, before back-to-back defeats against Dennis Bermudez and Conor McGregor put him on the back.
'Blessed', however, soon started the longest winning series in the history of UFC, and won 13 fights in a row, on the way to beating Jose Aldo to become the UFC champion Featherweight.
Max Holloway's performance Record's most featherweight victories 20 Most featherweight finishes 11 Most featherweight