Max Holloway congratulates Khabib Nurmagomedov for Hall of Fame induction, names Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva as his greats
Max Holloway is happy for Khabib Nurmagomedov being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame so quickly, but his legends in the sport start and end with Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva.
Sportskeeda MMA's James Lynch was on the scene at the UFC 276 media day press conference and asked Holloway where he ranked 'The Eagle' in his 'greatest of all time' list. Holloway said:
"I don't know. That's not my job to rank. Congrats to Khabib being in the Hall of Fame. And I don't know about the rankings. I have favorite fighters, and GSP and Anderson Silva is like number one and two. They're like right there. After that I couldn't tell you."
Holloway doesn't even consider himself the featherweight G.O.A.T.. He gives that mantle to Jose Aldo:
"It's cool that I got the wins [record]. But title defenses is title defenses, that is the actual record, you know? He got eight title wins, I got five. Like I said, we're not that far behind him. So hopefully I can catch him. We see what happens, but he's the G.O.A.T., bro. You can't take it away."
Watch Max Holloway discuss his G.O.A.T.s of MMA below:
Max Holloway holds the record for most wins in the featherweight division with 17. Aldo only has 13, although if you include his WEC wins it adds up to 18. Holloway also holds an insane record for longest featherweight win streak: 13 fights in a row. He also holds two stoppage wins over Jose Aldo, enough to earn himself featherweight G.O.A.T. status in the eyes of many fans.
Max Holloway vs Jose Aldo https://t.co/shM6AKvxoM
Max Holloway vs. Alexander Volkanovski is two top pound-for-pound fighters competing
Max Holloway is listed in the UFC's pound-for-pound rankings at No. 6, right below Francis Ngannou. Alexander Volkanovski is ranked No. 2 right behind Kamaru Usman. They're the only featherweights on the list, and will face each other for the third time on July 2 at UFC 276.
During the media day press conference, Holloway reminded the press how special a fight like this between top-ranked athletes is:
“You guys all know what pound-for-pound ranking he is. You know what pound-for-pound ranking I am. We’re on the higher end of the pound-for-pound ranks. These don’t happen in the past decade. It did only once with ‘DC’ and Jones. This is a legacy fight. This is huge in every way. To be honest, people are calling us the main event of this card. That’s saying a lot about this fight.”
'Blessed' has made some noise about this fight's placement in the co-main event. Per UFC tradition, if there are two championship fights on one card, the higher weight class almost always claims main event status.
However, Holloway believes it should have been his third scrap with Volkanovski that was granted the top slot.
Here's the official poster for UFC 276 🏆 https://t.co/Zs4LryfrMV