LAS VEGAS — It was a little over two years ago that Max Holloway came to Las Vegas and put on one of the most iconic performances of all time against Justin Gaethje at UFC 300. You might remember Holloway, well ahead on the scorecards and on aura, pointing to the ground with 10 seconds left the way a matador throws out the red cape. Seizing the opportunity, Gaethje chomped down on his mouthpiece and Holloway flattened him with a second left.
The city lost its s*** because Holloway not only gave actual meaning to the UFC’s ceremonial BMF title, he did it with the swag of an OG.
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It turns out the Ninth Island, as Holloway lovingly dubbed Sin City, wants to see other people, though. When Holloway was introduced at Thursday’s UFC 329 press conference, he was booed mercilessly inside the T-Mobile Arena. Granted, he was being booed because he’s fighting Conor McGregor, which is like Mercury going up against the sun, but you’d have thought Max as a cult figure in the game might’ve received a little more love.
Especially in Vegas.
Conor McGregor reacts to the crowd during the UFC 329 press conference in Las Vegas.
(Ed Mulholland via Getty Images)
Not that Max seemed to mind.
In fact, Max hasn’t taken offense to much this week, including when McGregor said he was going to retire him come Saturday night. If Holloway personified the BMF title, he also personifies the laid-back Hawaiian who doesn’t get caught up in any of this pre-ritual hoopla. When McGregor called Max’s boxing “abysmal,” Holloway countered that Conor’s was simply “bysmal,” because … well, in the 13 years since they last met it seems he hasn’t acquired any unnecessary f***s to give.
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This is why you’ve gotta love Max.
It’s the steadiness. It’s that he has only been one person the whole way, the same kid from Hawaii who showed up in Boston when they dropped the lights on Conor in 2013. When he last fought McGregor, the Irishman was a sensation of extraordinary stripe. A few weeks before they fought in Boston, McGregor was posting vlogs on the Vegas Strip in Dana White’s Ferrari (you might remember him giggling at the “little horsey” on the steering wheel).
Holloway, as McGregor’s next victim, was just incidental.
Conor McGregor and Max Holloway were still babies in this game when they first fought in 2013.
(Josh Hedges via Getty Images)
Back then Max was just a kid of 21, and his Adam’s apple was the biggest thing on his résumé. Back then he couldn’t talk because he’d yet to prove himself in any real way. Cut forward 13 years and he’s done more than anyone could’ve imagined. A UFC featherweight champion with three defenses, which is three more than McGregor had when he was the 145-pound champ. The man who landed 445 strikes — the significant kind — live on ABC against Calvin Katter, while declaring “I’m the best boxer in the UFC, baby!”
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The man who flatlined Gaethje, the same Gaethje who has resurrected himself as the UFC’s lightweight champion by toppling Ilia Topuria.
Holloway would be within his rights to feel jilted by Vegas’ reception, but again, this is why you’ve gotta love Max. If he feels unsung, he isn’t leading on. When Dustin Poirier got his second crack at McGregor in 2021, it was like he was resketching himself into existence after being erased through McGregor’s meteoric rise.
There was spite at the bottom of things. Vendettas. Justices that needed to be doled out, and records that needed to be corrected.
With Max, there’s a “wait until Saturday night” vibe, which is where his fists type a thousand words a minute. What I love is that he resisted the low-hanging fruit to fire back at McGregor in the way that the McGregor of yore might’ve fired back. At any point he could’ve mentioned McGregor’s sexual assault case, or his PED use, or really any of the other incidents that have rolled in off the police blotter over the past five years.
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He could’ve taken this week into a far darker place for McGregor, as a fighter like Sean Strickland most certainly would’ve. Yet he opted not to play that game, because that’s not a game Max plays. His is a quiet approach. The fight, which Dana White says has already broken the UFC’s all-time gate record, sells itself. When people talk about respect in the game, they are talking about Max Holloway, who sees the human side of the equation.
In a strange way things have come full circle. Max back to being the anonymous B-side. Back in 2013, McGregor arrived in Boston with more fanfare than any sophomore fighter ever had. He had an open workout at Peter Welch’s gym in Southie, and plenty of media gathered to get a first look at the “Notorious” Irishman. When he made the walk, midway through the prelims, they dropped the lights.
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Max stood in the dark then and took his lumps. That loss went into his story, which continues to be drowned out by McGregor’s story more than a decade later. The popular way of seeing it is that the “Mac is Back” this weekend, that it’s his comeback, as if Holloway isn’t the one who has to build himself back to fit this moment.
The biggest difference is that McGregor has changed a thousand times since then. Holloway is exactly the same. When the boos rained down Thursday night, he waited for them to subside, before saying, “we’re going to find out Saturday,” which is why you’ve gotta love Max. That’s who he’s been the whole way.
