Max Holloway has fresh start at lightweight heading into UFC 318

The past year of Max Holloway’s career has felt a lot like the “choose your own adventure” books of the 1980s.

If you don’t remember them or are too young to have experienced them, the way it worked was at certain points in the story, you’d have to make some kind of decision, and at the bottom of the page, you were presented with two or three options, with the story continuing on different pages based on the choice you made. You didn’t know how things were going to turn out based on the selection you made; you simply picked your path, flipped to the corresponding page, and continued on.

You controlled your own fate, and how the story ended came down to the decisions you made along the way.

Last April, Holloway turned in one of the best performances of his career at UFC 300, claiming the BMF Title from Justin Gaethje in a dominant showing punctuated by a signature call to meet in the centre and what followed was one of the most iconic knockouts in UFC history.

As the dust settled following that performance, the 33-year-old Hawaiian found himself at a crossroad, with the choice between two distinct paths forward sitting there for him at the bottom of the page.

If you’d like to return to featherweight and face Ilia Topuria for the title, turn to page 46.

If you’d like to remain at lightweight and potentially garner a championship opportunity against Islam Makhachev, turn to page 32.

“Blessed” rifled ahead to page 46, so to speak, facing off with Topuria in the main event of UFC 308 in October in Abu Dhabi. Early in the third round, Holloway was knocked out for the first time in his career, thwarted in his attempt to reclaim the title that helped define his legacy while being shown in vicious terms that his future rests in the lightweight ranks.

As he readies to make the walk this weekend in New Orleans to defend his BMF Title in a trilogy bout with Dustin Poirier that serves as both the headlining act for UFC 318 and Poirier’s home state swan song, it’s difficult not to wonder if Holloway should have turned to that metaphorical page 32 instead.

There was no way to foresee all the changes that have washed over both the featherweight and lightweight divisions since UFC 300.

At the time, Topuria was a couple months removed from claiming the title by knocking out Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298 and Makhachev was readying to defend his title against Poirier in what many thought would be the farewell fight for the beloved Louisiana native. Holloway was coming off a massive victory that earned him a symbolic title and the opportunity, it seemed, to pick his path.

He opted to return to featherweight, got knocked out, and has since watched as the landscape around him has undergone a seismic shift.

Earlier this year, Topuria vacated the featherweight title, announcing a move to lightweight. In April, Volkanovski defeated Diego Lopes to claim the vacant featherweight title, returning to the position he held between December 2019 and February 2024, one he first earned by defeating Holloway and maintained by besting his Hawaiian rival twice more along the way.

The following month, Makhachev declared his intentions to relocate to welterweight and challenge new champ Jack Della Maddalena at a future date, creating a vacancy atop the lightweight division. At UFC 317 in late June, that space was filled by Topuria, who knocked out Charles Oliveira in the first round to claim the lightweight title and join the exclusive collection of athletes to have held titles in two weight classes.

Do things play out differently if Holloway opts to stay at lightweight? No one can say for sure, but as it stands now, there is a fighter that has beaten him three times atop the featherweight ranks, and the first person to knock him out stationed at the top of the lightweight division, which surely had to make Holloway shake his head and laugh in amusement at least once in the last couple months.

The decision to return to featherweight and face Topuria always made logical sense, but also felt like the wrong choice in the moment, because it was always going to be there, at least in theory.

Holloway wasn’t expected to beat Gaethje at UFC 300 — he was the underdog, the guy moving up a weight class — and his performance, capped by that wild finish, created an entirely new avenue at lightweight for him to explore, with featherweight sitting there as a back-up plan if things didn’t work out in the 155-pound ranks. He’d done the work to put himself in the best position to succeed in his second UFC lightweight appearance, re-shaping his body to be ready for the punishment sure to come his way against the human wrecking ball that trains in Denver under the tutelage of Trevor Wittman, and he showed out.

As good as Holloway had looked in his previous featherweight wins over Arnold Allen and Chan Sung Jung, his performance against Gaethje was a throwback to the Calvin Kattar fight, where “Blessed” boxed the face off the New England Cartel member – landing a UFC record 445 significant strikes – all while shouting about being the best boxer in the UFC and dodging punches without looking. He was fluid, fast, and it felt like one of those moments where you saw someone’s future emerge right before your eyes.

The timeline probably played a part in his decision – Makhachev didn’t end up fighting until January, and Holloway has rarely been someone that wanted to sit on the sidelines for an extended period — but beating Gaethje the way he did, coupled with his extensive history at featherweight and massive popularity put him at the front of the line to challenge for the lightweight title, and it would be interesting to know how things would have played out had he opted to go that direction and pick the page that led to a fight with the now former lightweight champion.

Instead, he’s coming into the weekend and his first BMF Title defence off a loss down a weight class, against someone that now stands in the way of his lightweight championship aspirations.

Despite his loss to Topuria last year, Holloway is still very much in the thick of the chase in the 155-pound ranks heading into his third encounter with Poirier on Saturday, and can do a lot to bolster his chances of challenging for the title in the not too distant future with a quality showing at Smoothie King Center this weekend.

While the timing of things might have hurt him last year, the fact that he’s headlining the first pay-per-view event since “El Matador” ascended to the lightweight throne could work in his favour.

At present, there isn’t a clear No. 1 contender in the lightweight division.

Arman Tsarukyan has a definite case, having been scheduled to fight for the belt in January before being forced out due to an 11th hour injury and weighing in as the backup options for last month’s title fight, while Gaethje is making noise about wanting a championship opportunity as well.

But while the first of those contenders hasn’t fought since edging out Oliveira at UFC 300 and the second is banking on his overall resume and recent win over Rafael Fiziev to elevate him into a third championship opportunity, Holloway had an earth-shattering performance right after Tsarukyan last April, and left Gaethje lying unconscious in the centre of the Octagon in that fight.

If Holloway can turn in a comparable effort against another divisional mainstay and all-action star like Poirier, “Blessed” could put himself right back where he was following UFC 300, especially if he looks considerably better this weekend than he did in that venture back to the 145-pound ranks last fall.

Now, Topuria may not be interested in running it back with someone he knocked out less than a year ago, and that might be something Holloway has to accept and roll with, but for the time being, all he can do is handle business at UFC 318 and put himself in a position to force the new champion’s hand.