Max Holloway doesn’t mind trading verbal jabs with his opponents, but he doesn’t operate under the “when they go low, you go lower” mantra.
In the leadup to UFC 308, Holloway sat down for a face-to-face interview with opponent Ilia Topuria where they went back and forth for nearly 20 minutes in a heated exchange. At one point, Holloway told him to “speak” as Topuria was seemingly stumbling over his words and the former featherweight champion later revealed that he received criticism as if he was mocking the Georgian fighter for struggling with his English, which is obviously not his first language.
“I need to clear this up,” Holloway told MMA Fighting when addressing the situation. “A lot of people was giving me heat for teasing him how he spoke English. I wasn’t teasing that he was speaking English. I know he speaks like five languages. I speak one language and I have a hard time speaking English. I have a hard time saying names. I understand how hard speaking one language is. I wasn’t teasing his language.
“What I was teasing was that he sounded so scripted and then every time he went off of his scripted words, he started mumbling or he would say ‘shut the f*ck up, motherf*cker.’ I’m like brother, you’re so scripted right now. That’s why I teased him. I’m like speak. Stop using your scripted lines.”
It turns out that was Holloway’s biggest annoyance because he believes Topuria was effectively reading from a script during many of the verbal exchanges.
While Holloway doesn’t spent much time trash talking his opponents, he’s not going to knock a guy for the way he speaks English but he’s not opposed to getting frustrated when he feels like he’s hearing rehearsed lines meant to insult him.
“It wasn’t that deep,” Holloway said. “I was calling him out. You could tell. Watch the interview. Everything he was saying was scripted. As soon as it wasn’t scripted, or he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t have an answer for it, he’d either say ‘shut the eff up, mother effer’ or he would start stumbling. That’s why I was teasing him.
“I don’t talk very good English and this is my only language. Stop attacking me about that.”
Truth be told, Holloway can’t wait to put the talking behind him and just get into the octagon to battle with Topuria as he attempts to reclaim the UFC featherweight title.
He hasn’t sat on top of the 145-pound division for nearly five years after falling to Alexander Volkanovski back in 2019 and then losing a pair of rematches to the Australian.
Meanwhile, Topuria vanquished Volkanovski in impressive fashion back in February, ultimately scoring a second round knockout to win the title. That fight came just under four months removed from Volkanovski suffering a brutal head kick knockout loss to Islam Makhachev and an argument could be made that he rushed back too soon for the showdown against Topuria.
For his part, Holloway doesn’t want to live in a world filled with what ifs because Volkanovski made the decision to fight and Topuria beat him. End of story.
“At the end of the day, we can be like ‘if he did this, if he did that,’ at the end of the day his team, Alex has a great team around him, they thought that he was ready and they went out there and fought,” Holloway said. “Even if he was compromised, Ilia went out there and did his thing. He landed the shot that ended the fight. That’s a hard thing to do. He’s still got to do that part.
“We can say he said, she said and all this kind of stuff, but at the end of the day, Ilia did what he did. He showed up to the fight, Alex showed up to the fight, and he was just on the winning side. You can’t take nothing away from the guy. I’m not going to. He’s a dangerous man and I can’t wait to go out there and share the octagon with him and prove a lot of these naysayers wrong.”
When it comes to his hopes to reclaim the title on Saturday, Holloway admits it would be a remarkably important moment for his career, especially considering what he endured through those three losses to Volkanovski.
Becoming a two-time UFC featherweight champion might not end up as the biggest accomplishment of his career, but Holloway knows it would be pretty special.
“It would mean a lot, especially with the way my career went,” Holloway said. “After that third fight with [Alexander] Volkanovski, a lot of people were saying I should change weight classes or all together, I should just retire because it’s never, ever going to happen.
“I guess a couple of years later we’re here and we’re days away and we get to find out who has the last laugh Oct. 26. I can’t wait for the opportunity.”
