Max Holloway will be entering foreign territory tomorrow afternoon (Saturday, January 16, 2021) at UFC Fight Island 7, when he faces Calvin Katter live on ABC, from inside the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. It will not only be the UFC’s first main event on ABC, but it will be Holloway’s first untitled fight since 2016.
Holloway, who comes from consecutive defeats to current UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski, is trying to fight for the title in 2021. The former division champion and great at all times in the UFC will have to win some fights to get there. And although “Blessed” believes he still has the best fighting skills in the division, he is not forgetting Kattar this weekend on “Fight Island”.
“He’s standing in front of me for a reason,” Holloway told UFC.com. “I have to respect that. At the end of the day, I can’t wait. He earned his place by being here, but on Saturday night, we discovered many answers. “
This will be Holloway’s first untitled fight since his decision victory over Ricardo Lamas at UFC 199. This happened more than four years ago and some fans believe that Holloway’s current situation could lead to a more hungry “Blessed” inside the cage . Holloway may agree that he has to win this fight to stay afloat at 145 pounds, but the veteran remains adamant that he carries the same focus on each of his fights.
“I see these things and I respect that,” he said. “That’s what some people like to say. This is what most people say. But the difference is that I’m hungry. In the last fight, I trained on Zoom. How much more hungry can someone get? We couldn’t train in person. I had to train with Zoom. We found out and I’m hungry. I can’t wait to go there on a Saturday night and not necessarily remind people or show people; I just want to go out there and do my thing ”.
Holloway, who despite his long stay in the UFC remains at just 29 years old, is in a better position than most to regain his place in the featherweight title line. That’s because “Blessed” will make its comeback in the Octagon against Kattar on open television. He will have the opportunity to impress sports fans who have never seen an MMA fight before and create an even greater following for one of the most important years of his career.
“Fighting at ABC is huge,” said Holloway. “You want to talk about titles, you want to talk about pay-per-view fights, this is the cream of the crop. I know some guys from pay-per-view who would love to be on ABC. This is the first fight of the year for the UFC, so it’s huge. These are opportunities like this where I help people get to know the mixed martial arts, I help people get to know the UFC, so I’m excited about that.
UFC Fight Island 7 will mark Holloway’s second trip to the combat flight from Abu Dhabi, when he lost by split decision to Volkanovski at UFC 251 last July.
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE coverage round by round, step by step for the entire UFC Fight Island 7 fight letter RIGHT HERE, starting with the ESPN + “Preliminaries” is 12.00 Eastern Time, then the balance on the main card ESPN + and ABC at 3 pm Eastern Time.
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