A former champion will return to work this summer to continue his quest to get back to a title shot.
Former featherweight champ Max Holloway (22-6 MMA, 18-6 UFC) is set to take on Yair Rodriguez (13-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC) in the main event of the UFC’s July 17 card. The news first was reported by UFC broadcast partner ESPN, citing promotion president Dana White. The UFC has not yet made a formal announcement.
The July 17 card does not yet have an announced location or venue, but is likely to be a “Fight Night” card at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas with a broadcast on a combination of ESPN and ESPN+.
Holloway got back in the win column in January with a dominant decision over Calvin Kattar at UFC on ABC 1. He snapped a two-fight skid of losses to current champ Alexander Volkanovski, who beat him by unanimous decision in December 2019 to win the title, then took a split decision from him in their July 2020 rematch at UFC 251.
Holloway won the interim featherweight title in December 2016, then beat Jose Aldo to unify the belts in June 2017. He knocked Aldo out a second time in a rematch later that year. His title reign also included wins over Brian Ortega and Frankie Edgar, as well as a failed attempt to win the interim lightweight title against Dustin Poirier in April 2019.
Rodriguez hasn’t fought since an October 2019 decision win over Jeremy Stephens in a fight that was a rematch from a month prior. In their first meeting, an accidental eye poke left Stephens unable to continue just 15 seconds into the fight. Rodriguez picked up a “Fight of the Night” bonus for the win after a double-bonus knockout of Chan Sung Jung 11 months prior.
Rodriguez was set to take on Zabit Magomedsharipov this past August, but pulled out of the fight with an injury. Then in December, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced he had been suspended for six months for failing to notify the organization of his location for drug testing.
With the addition, the UFC’s July 17 lineup now includes:
- Max Holloway vs. Yair Rodriguez
- Marion Reneau vs. Miesha Tate
- Amir Albazi vs. Ode Osbourne
- Sergey Morozov vs. Khalid Taha
- Guram Kutateladze vs. Don Madge
- Cameron Else vs. Aaron Phillips
- Herbert Burns vs. Billy Quarantillo
- Francisco Figueredo vs. Malcolm Gordon
- Anderson dos Santos vs. Miles Johns
- Alan Baudot vs. Rodrigo Nascimento
- Phil Hawes vs. Deron Winn
- Islam Makhachev vs. Thiago Moises
- Mateusz Gamrot vs. Jeremy Stephens
- Alan Baudot vs. Rodrigo Nascimento
- Amanda Lemos vs. Montserrat Ruiz
- Abubakar Nurmagomedov vs. Daniel Rodriguez
Max Holloway vs. Yair Rodriguez headlines UFC’s July 17 event
