Warning: Rant!!! Holloway dissapoint me big time. Come on, Blessed, WTF? He fought the exact way he fought @ 145, but worse. He had to step up his game and not only he didn't, he downgraded. Where were the smarts and technique he showed us @145 - he couldn't even found a way around the awkward guard of Poirier and he had 5 full rounds to do it. Just one dimensional boxing all night and pitter-patter punches won't do it against the heavyer guys. Where were the interrupting oblique kicks I saw this man throw in other fights, where was the stance switching, the bodywork etc., Poirier have historically problems with southpaws, Max, did you even saw one minute of footage of him?? Max, WTF, man?? Another thing not at all thought through: All fighters who went a weightclass higher and got succesfull did it with the aid of bulking up the right way and throwing with more intent to hurt the opponent (or fought a lot of shlubs first like Cerrone did). Holloway just pissed his win away here, he had all the tools to win. Just riding on his 145 fame and believing that he is the best of the best is not enough, you gotta put in the work and be patient. Poirier was thicker and was sitting on his punches, how are you gonna earn his respect and get him to not just walk throught whatever you throw at him with just touching all night?? Yeah, I've seen this shit happening, but the guys who do it have ironclad defense or at least they don't give up a lot of weight. I lot of things were wrong with Max. He didn't look prepared for this fight. And Poirier dealt with more dangerous attrition based fighter already in the face of Gaethje, he knew what to do. Still Poirier was fighting well, but seemed he wanted the KO so bad that he fought below his level IMO. If he was the Poirier of the Justin fight, Max was gonna be out of there and his legendary chin was not gonna be enough to save him. In my humble opinion of course. I'm so fucking mad, guys!!! Every time I start to root for someone who is on the brink of becoming absolutely huge, he is inevitably gonna lose. Just the nature of us, humans, maybe. We gain some momentum and we start to believe our own hype. We foget to do the things that brought us to this level and get whacked upside the head by the reality. I sincerely hope the reality whacked Max Holloway hard enough to make him humble. I love this guy, I know he is a brilliant fighter, his ego didn't allow him to show his full potential in this champ fight. Max Bless. Edit I'm adding this part below. It's edited part of a comment of mine in this thread "I like him (Max) because he is a smart dude. Not because of his bravado shit. I can care less if he thinks he is King Kong and wanna challenge DC or freaking Ngannou or whoever... I wanna see a calculated killer like Jon Jones in there. Jon can be a despicable human being outside the cage, but inside he is absolute professional. A killing machine, but most importantly, not gonna give you a chance to land a glove killing machine, a master of his craft. You don't feel you have a chance to win anything when you are there with Jones, you are helpless prey. Yeah, he has his pride (Jon), but the win is the numer one priority, he would not take a challenge unless he thinks he is 100% ready and feels he has a good edge somewhere with something. I like a technician who can scrap also (IF NECESSARY!). I don't wanna see a technicial fighter who forgets what bringed him to the dance and turns himself into a glorified brawler... No, thanks. I was putting Holloway in there with Jones... I might reconsider that. Holloway have to show me smarts and not in a fight or two, but in a long row."
He relied too much on his chin at 145 and now he did the same at 155, only the punches affected him a lot more at the higher weight class. Holloway will not have any longevity if he keeps fighting like this, I'm sad to say.
YOu have a plan until you get punched in the face...Dustin's punches got to him bad....Max isn't really known for elusiveness...and when you get into a dogfight with someone with heavy hands...
The problem is Max looked skinny fat. He didnt look as lean, and ripped as usual. This is probably why he wasnt as fast, and athletic. Is like he cut weight, but not fat. He should have moved up to 155 keeping the same low bodyfat he had at 145.
Soooo. If Volk beats aldo does it mean Holloway will defend at 145 ? Seems a kind of shame because what happens if aldo dominates Volk?? The Fw division was the true loser tonight, not Max.
I don't know what you expect him to do differently - dude's skills(and, thus, style of fighting) are clearly limited by his body. He's the picture beside the word "ectomorph"; Max probably couldn't put on an ounce of mass without a needle in his ass. Not to mention he doesn't have power at 145, relying on pure & utter volume to get those TKOs at FW; Poirier has a fragile chin, but he's still a 155er fighting a volume 145er. Don't get me wrong, I certainly didn't expect the fight to go like that, or even for Dustin to win - but, I also didn't realize that Holloway was actually THAT small until we saw them in the cage together either, which is when it became obvious that Max was going to have some trouble doing anything to Poirier. If you can't carry enough power to make an opponent respect your strikes, then moving up in weight with such a large size discrepancy just likely isn't going to turn out well, that's all there is to it. No amount of "bulking and sitting on his punches" is going to magically make Holloway capable of actually seriously hurting someone of Poirier's size. Now, all of that "he didn't look prepared" garbage - GTFO of here with that bullshit, there was NO signs of Max being "unprepared"
Lol, I love Max and expected him to win but that "awkward" forearm x block was very clever and not easily worked around and Max switched stance constantly as well as going to the body, did you even watch the fight? Also when has Poirier "historically" had problems with South paws? I can only recall him having problems with 1? Max got hurt early and often in round one and Poirier showed great Boxing, defence and most surprisingly managed to maintain pace and match cardio with Max which I thought would be Max's key to victory. Fantastic performance from Dustin tonight proving myself and many others wrong. Plus he was huge in there and made Max look small and he drastically out powered him.
max can barely make 145 anymore as it is. i remember some athletic commission was close to forcing him to move up in weight.
Had to say this here. @Jordan3399 was fucking right to pick Dustin. And I have to eat my words. Yeah. I was wrong on both main and co-main. As @Right Hook nut shot said, he didn't look in shape for the weightclass. That is one sign he was not prepared. If you actually look at the footage of Holloway and his body of work @145 you'll see a lot of things he did there which were completely lacking here. He is smart man, yeah he absorbs a lot of shots in some fights, but he puts the science in this bitch every time he fights, except in this and I would even say in his Ortega fight he didn't look as his usual self. He was also skinnier there, not the giant we saw v Aldo.
IDK, man, it's entertaining for the fans. I for sure like a fighter who makes some faces in the octagon and is not some robot like Fedor for example. I love fighters who shows passion. If he won we would praise his antics, now it's not that cool when you are on the losing end. I understand.
