The UFC’s reigning ‘BMF’ champion Max Holloway has revealed that he probably won’t be seen back in the Octagon in 2025 after suffering an injury during his successful title defense against Dustin Poirier at UFC 318 last month.
“Talking about [Poirier] being strong like a diamond, I mean, my right hand still hurts…big ass head, as I told him after the fight,” Holloway said on his YouTube channel while wearing a brace on that hand.
“Lotta people talking about who’s next, who’s this. There’s a lot of fun fights, like I said, for me at 55. [Charles] Oliveira…I mean if [Justin] Gaethje gets the next title shot that’d be cool. If I get the next title shot, that’d be sick, but if you have hopes of me fighting before the end of the year, probably not going to happen.
“I see a specialist sometime this week. I already met with the doctor, now I gotta go meet the specialist, but things are not looking too up of me fighting one more time this year.”
So Holloway isn’t sure what comes next, but he did make a point to push back against talk that he doesn’t deserve a rematch against current lightweight champion Ilia Topuria after being KO’d by him at 145lbs last year.
“I’m excited for the future, but what’s next? I couldn’t tell you. Now this stupid injury pushed me back a little bit, so we don’t know what’s going to happen.
“But even if I didn’t have this injury, the talks is wild. At the end of the day [fans are saying]… a lot of people are saying me and Ilia don’t make sense because my last fight before this one was Ilia, and he did what he did to me, right? But then how do you make a case for someone that I fought [Gaethje]— I know he didn’t fight Ilia, but I fought him — I did what I did to him, and he’s going to fight next for the title after just winning one [fight]. Because most of you guys don’t know what you’re talking about. Most of you guys don’t know shit about fighting.”
Watch Holloway’s full chat on his current situation below.
