The featherweight division has seen some serious shake ups over the past couple of years. New champions have emerged, legends have fallen, and the landscape keeps shifting dramatically. Max Holloway knows this division better than almost anyone else on the planet. The Hawaiian legend has been mixing it up with the best featherweights for over a decade now. He has seen fighters rise and fall, witnessed careers peak and decline, and understands the subtle factors that can make or break a championship run. <\/p>
When someone like Holloway speaks about the current state of the division, people tend to listen carefully. His recent comments about Ilia Topuria’s impressive recent three fight winning streak have raised some eyebrows and sparked plenty of discussion among fight fans.<\/p>
Max Holloway recently shared his thoughts on Topuria’s last three victories, and his take might surprise some people. He’s not trying to take anything away from the Georgian fighter’s accomplishments. However, he wants fans to dig deeper than just looking at names on a resume. According to Holloway, people get too caught up in the big names without considering the circumstances surrounding those fights. He believes that context matters just as much as the actual results when evaluating a fighter’s current streak.<\/p>
The former champion pointed out some interesting details about Topuria’s recent opponents that many fans might have overlooked. When Topuria knocked out Alexander Volkanovski at UFC<\/a> 298 to win the featherweight title, it was an incredible achievement. But Holloway noted that Volkanovski was coming off a devastating knockout loss to Islam Makhachev just months earlier. Topuria’s recent lightweight title win over Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 came against a fighter who was only on a one-fight win streak at the time.<\/p> “It’s just tough… he beat the names, you can’t deny that… it just sucks when you look at that Volk fight, with Volk coming off [the Islam KO]…People just look at the names. They’re not looking at the record… What was Charles on, a 1 fight win streak?”<\/em><\/strong> said Holloway via Shak MMA.<\/p>