Max Holloway: Move to Lightweight ‘Just a Matter of Time’

UFC 226 is now available on Amazon Prime.

Eyebrows were raised after Ultimate Fighting Championship featherweight champion Max Holloway was deemed medically unfit to fight lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov on short notice at UFC 223.

Fans and media alike were left to wonder: How could it be that the 145 pound champ wouldn’t be able to make the 155 pound limit? How much weight, exactly, does Holloway cut?

“Blessed” touched on that subject during Thursday’s UFC 226 conference call, and was extremely clear about what the future holds:

“I’m definitely going up to 155 pounds; it’s just a matter time,” Holloway said. “I got business to handle at 145 pounds right now.”

Holloway famously stepped up to fight Nurmagomedov after Tony Ferguson was forced out of the fight just days ahead of UFC 223, only to be turned away at the last minute by the New York State Athletic Commission. The featherweight champion gave his thoughts on how to remedy all of these recent weight cutting issues that seem to plague nearly every UFC card:

“The doctors were just doing their jobs. It was out of my hands,” Holloway said. “[But] they shouldn’t take away morning weigh-ins for fighters who want to do it. They should keep two weigh-ins, the morning one and the option to do it in the afternoon.”

Holloway seemed enthusiastic about the idea of moving up to lightweight, which is something the previous featherweight champion, Conor McGregor, did as well. In the meantime, Holloway takes on surging featherweight contender Brian Ortega in the co-main event of UFC 226 on July 7 for the 145-pound belt.

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