The two best featherweights in the UFC are going to battle it out for a third time in July. News broke today that the promotion has locked in a date for the highly anticipated third fight between featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski (24-1) and former champion Max Holloway (23-6).
After Ariel Helwani reported that the UFC was looking at July, MMA Fighting confirmed this afternoon that the fight will go down at UFC 276 on July 2nd. There is expected to be multiple title fights on this card as it’s the promotion’s signature card tied to their fan expo.
A few years ago, it was inconceivable to think of a featherweight in the UFC better the Max Holloway. The Blessed Express was off and running and he was completely outclassing everyone at 145 pounds. However, that all changed when he ran into Alexander Volkanovski.
Holloway and Volkanovski first met at UFC 245. Volkanovski had a tremendous game plan and he was able to outpoint Holloway and win the featherweight title. The two men had an immediate rematch that took place at UFC 251.
This fight was razor close and many believe that Holloway won the fight. However, two of the judges gave the fight to Volkanovski and he retained the title. Since then, Holloway has picked up two solid wins over Yair Rodriguez and Calvin Kattar. The Kattar victory was one of the more impressive wins in his UFC career.
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After the second fight with Max Holloway, many were casting a shadow on the title reign of Alexander Volkanovski. Many thought that Holloway won the fight and even Dana White said that Volkanovski didn’t win the second fight.
However, over the last two fights, Volkanovski silenced everyone. Starting with his title defense at UFC 266. Volkanovski completely destroyed Brian Ortega. After that, the UFC wanted to book the trilogy with Holloway, however, Holloway suffered an injury.
The Korean Zombie stepped up and that fight took place at UFC 273. Volkanovski was even more dominant in this performance and stopped TKZ in the fourth round. Now, he has his final chance to really silence everyone with a convincing win over Holloway at UFC 276. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for this one.