White Wants Immediate Volkanovski-Holloway Trilogy

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White is not opposed to giving Max Holloway a third straight featherweight title fight against Alexander Volkanovski, even though “Blessed” is already down 0-2 on “The Great” scorecards.

It helps that most of the 145-pound weight class is already tied up. According to White, the Top 5 of the division, which includes Zabit Magomedsharipov, Brian Ortega, Chan Sung Jung, and Yair Rodriguez, are either booked or in the process of finalizing fights.

“Well, here’s the thing,” White told ESPN (via MMA Junkie). “Calvin Kattar just fought. Yair Rodriguez has a fight coming up. (Korean) ‘Zombie’ has a fight coming up. Ortega and Zabit – all of these guys are going to fight in the next couple of months here. We’ll see how that all plays out. It’s hard to not say we can give Max a rematch for that fight again – do it a third time. I think all of the fans and the media would agree with that. I don’t know for sure.”

Volkanovski scored a convincing unanimous decision win over Holloway when they first went to war at UFC 245 last December; however, “Blessed” turned in a much better performance in their UFC 251 rematch and may have gotten screwed by the judges.

Expect a tough sell either way.

“I’m sure Volkanovski doesn’t love that idea,” White continued. “He’s like, ‘Listen, I just beat this guy twice. You know?’ And if you’re Volkanovski, you’re like, ‘Guess what? The media aren’t judges. Dana White is not a judge. The people that are assigned to judge the fight say I won twice.’ I haven’t really talked to Volkanovski about it. It’s something I definitely need to do. We’ll see how this thing plays out.”

Holloway (21-6) won 14 straight fights at featherweight before running into Volkanovski, but his dominant title reign was not without its controversy. The 28 year-old Hawaiian also made the trip up to lightweight in April 2019, falling to Dustin Poirier at UFC 236.

Volkanovski vs. Holloway 3 … who wants it?