UFC 236 took place over the weekend, with UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway coming up short in his bid for a second belt. Holloway lost via unanimous decision to Dustin Poirier, who claimed the interim lightweight title after a five-round thriller.
For Holloway, the result snapped a 13-fight winning streak that dates back to January 2014. Prior to UFC 236, “Blessed” teased the idea of a permanent move to 155 pounds because of the difficulty to make the 145-pound featherweight limit and the potential effect it’s had on health scares that forced him out of fights in 2018. Does the loss to Poirier change things? What did UFC 236 tell us about Holloway’s outlook as a lightweight? MMA Junkie’s Ben Fowlkes, Mike Bohn and Fernanda Prates sound off in this edition of “Triple Take.”
Ben Fowlkes: Holloway’s a great featherweight, but maybe just a very good lightweight – which is fine
Early on in the fight with Poirier, you could see a pattern taking shape. Holloway would come forward looking loose and easy and relaxed, firing off punch combinations and advancing with confidence. Then Poirier would fire back and sting him, sending him backwards with one or two powerful strikes that made him rethink his whole approach.
This doesn’t usually happen to Holloway at featherweight. But then, he wasn’t at featherweight anymore, a fact which he was rudely reminded of several times in those first couple rounds.
To his credit, Holloway managed to make some adjustments as the fight wore on. Still, Poirier always had that sledgehammer in his back pocket when he needed it. And when that wasn’t enough and he needed a respite from Holloway’s suffocating attack, he could halt the momentum with a takedown attempt against the cage.
Featherweights can’t do this to Holloway. At 145 pounds, he baits people into trying this strategy so he can drown them with sheer volume and punch output. Odds are, most lightweights wouldn’t be able to do it to him either.
But the top tier guys at 155 pounds? Yeah, they might have the power and the resiliency necessary to beat him. Which, honestly, isn’t the worst thing that could possibly happen.
What if it turns out that Holloway is an elite featherweight, but merely a very good lightweight? Wouldn’t that just prove that we have weight classes for a reason? Wouldn’t it give us more reasons to appreciate his willingness to give it a shot anyway?
If Holloway wanted to hang around at lightweight, I’m sure he could. I don’t see him beating guys like Khabib Nurmagomedov or Tony Ferguson there, but it’s not as if his stock dropped following this incredible fight with Poirier. I’d even go so far as to say that, if you gave him five more rounds to work, he might figure this out yet.
All I’m saying is, the things he does so well at featherweight don’t necessarily carry over intact at lightweight. And that’s OK. Maybe it ought to be expected.
Next page – Mike Bohn: No shame in losing to Poirier, putting lightweight move on hold
Mike Bohn: No shame in losing to Poirier, putting lightweight move on hold
Holloway has nothing to be ashamed about in losing to Poirier, but there are legitimate questions about how conducive his style is at 155 pounds.
Poirier talked prior to UFC 236 about how his future could eventually be at welterweight. He’s a big boy for the division, and his power absolutely translates. Holloway took the best of what “The Diamond” had to offer and never went down, but we’ve never seen the Hawaiian hurt that bad standing at featherweight.
Although Poirier did admit after the fight that he was hurt at points, that’s likely a product of Holloway’s volume-based style as opposed to getting rocked by any single shot.
We all know the weight cut for Holloway isn’t easy at 145 pounds, but the way he tells it, it’s not horrendous, either. The only time weight cutting truly has been an issue was prior to that short-notice Nurmagomedov fight at UFC 223, and as I reported at the time, he was just three pounds over the limit when New York commission officials cut him off. If he had his way, Holloway would’ve kept going and made that weight.
Does he look healthier at lightweight? Certainly. But having a camp that forces him to shed off that 10 extra pounds arguably brings out a different type of focus and commitment in preparation that results in an added edge inside the octagon.
Holloway’s tools are just that much sharper at featherweight, and the roster of opponents have a really tough time dealing with them. It’s essentially the perfect skillset for the weight class, and Holloway should ride it out until it doesn’t make sense anymore.
The goal for Holloway is to become the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. He might need to take out some lightweights in the future in order to firm up that case, but at 27, there’s no rush for that to happen. Let Holloway try to rack up some more title defenses against the likes of Frankie Edgar, Alex Volkanovski, Renato Moicano and whoever else might pop up. He can revisit the lightweight move later.
The division isn’t going anywhere, and neither is Holloway.
Next page – Fernanda Prates: Let’s not rush to judgment after only one performance
Fernanda Prates: Let’s not rush to judgment after only one performance
There’s a thing that happens rather often when a fighter decides to move up a weight class.
On the day before the fight, as they step on the scale looking a whole lot better than what we’ve seen before, we issue a collective sigh of relief. “So great to see them finally looking healthy” is a tweet that I can remember both reading and writing a number of times.
But then the next day comes. And, depending on what happens there, the conversation takes a turn.
On Saturday, we saw Holloway give the lightweight division a shot in a rematch against Poirier. Like Holloway, Poirier had started his UFC career at featherweight. Unlike Holloway, though, Poirier’s transition was immediately successful.
I wouldn’t go so far to call what Holloway did in that insane battle “unsuccessful,” but fact is that he lost. And suddenly there’s amnesia around all those times when Holloway’s cut seemed downright scary. Like that time when he stepped in on short-notice for another 155-pound title fight, and doctors ruled him unfit to compete. Or that time when he experienced concussion-like symptoms and, with no explanations readily available, people were quick to point to the weight cut down to 145 as a culprit.
Fans and even fellow fighters long have been speculating about Holloway’s move up to lightweight. But then he loses to a strong, imposing opponent, and we see calls for him to go back down.
Now, I’m not saying lightweight is definitely Holloway’s division. He might fight once or twice more and realize he is, indeed, undersized. Or that his style of fighting isn’t conducive with the division. He might just go back down to the featherweight class that he currently rules immediately and decide to stay there. He might weigh the risks and the rewards and decide the weight cut is still worth it.
And that’s fine. That math is up for him and his team to figure out.
What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t make that conclusion for him based on one fight. A fight in which, it’s worth noting, Holloway went the distance with the same man who dispatched Eddie Alvarez, Justin Gaethje and Anthony Pettis not that long ago.
(And, on that note, what do you think would be the conversation had Pettis lost to Stephen Thompson last month?)
I’m saying that, just this last December, Holloway fought at featherweight. And that while simply packing on weight isn’t that hard, getting your body to perform optimally with those new pounds takes more time than four months.
What I’m saying is, just give it some time.
For complete coverage of UFC 236, check out the UFC Events section of the site.
