A fight between the symbolic ‘BMF’ titleholder Justin Gaethje and former featherweight champ Max Holloway will take place at UFC 300 in Las Vegas on April 13th.
The 35-year-old Gaethje won the ‘BMF’ title (vacated by Jorge Masvidal after his retirement) by knocking out Dustin Poirier via a 2nd round head kick at UFC 291 last year.
That, together with a majority decision win over Rafael Fiziev, leaves Gaethje ranked No.2 in the lightweight division. AS such there had been talk of him potentially fighting for the 155lb title next, and indeed current champion Islam Makhachev had signalled his interest in defending the title against him in the summer.
Instead, for the time being Gaethje will get ready to take on the 32-year-old Holloway, who will be stepping up to lightweight for the 2nd time in his career, having previously fought Dustin Poirier for the interim belt at UFC 236 back in 2019, losing by unanimous decision.
That fight actually ended Holloway’s 13-fight winning streak at the time, and later that year he’d lose his featherweight title to Alexander Volkanovski, who would prove to be his nemesis in years to come, beating him a total of three times.
Beyond that though Holloway hasn’t lost to anyone else at 145lbs in his five other fights since the Poirier loss and is currently coming off back-to-back wins over Arnold Allen and The Korean Zombie in 2023.
Gaethje and Holloway are two of the most consistently entertaining fighters in the history of the UFC, so it’s not hard to see why the promotion has opted to pair them together, though some may question whether it’s the right fight for ‘Blessed’ given that he didn’t look at his best the last time he fought at 155lbs.
Gaethje vs. Holloway joins a UFC 300 card that doesn’t yet have a confirmed main or co-main event, but will also feature a women’s strawweight title fight between Zhang Weili and Yan Xiaonan along with Charles Oliveira vs. Arman Tsarukyan, Jiri Prochazka vs. Aleksander Rakic, Aljamain Sterling vs. Calvin Kattar and Bo Nickal vs. Cody Brundage.
