Max Holloway Pulls Out Of His Fight Against Yair Rodriguez

One of the rarest scenes in the UFC took place recently as Max ‘Blessed’ Holloway has pulled out of his fight against no.3 ranked featherweight contender Yair Rodriguez. News of Holloway’s injury first was reported by UFC broadcast partner ESPN through ESPN Deportes. Max Holloway vs. Yair Rodriguez was set to headline UFC on ESPN 26 on July 17. While the location of the event wasn’t yet announced, the card most likely will take place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The co-main event of that card featured the return of the former women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate who will be fighting the rising contender Marion Reneau. The chances are that this fight now may headline that card as the main event is off. There are some considerations that the fight between Holloway and Rodriguez might be postponed to another date. No official announcement regarding the same has been made by the UFC. The injury that Max suffered looks like something he must have got in the training camp.

Max Holloway’s No Sparring Version

Max Holloway is arguably the greatest featherweight fighter of all time. The guy is just 29 years old and has already so many accolades to his name. Max’s debut fight was against Dustin Poirier which he lost and that was his first PRO-MMA loss. Since then he has suffered few losses in his career but his resume speaks for itself. Fighting and proving time and time again why he is the best.

His featherweight title reign begins when he fought Jose Aldo at UFC 212 and defeated him in the third round. He faced him again in an immediate rematch at UFC 218 but the result wasn’t any different. Holloway was then scheduled to defend his Featherweight title at UFC 226 against Brian Ortega. However, Holloway was pulled from the fight due to “concussion-like symptoms. The Fight took place in the main event at UFC 231 in Toronto, Canada where it was Max Holloway’s show. He defeated Brian in an absolute beatdown. Holloway broke the record for most significant strikes in one fight with 290, broke the record for landing 134 of those significant strikes in a round.

He then faced Dustin Poirier in a rematch for the interim UFC Lightweight Championship at UFC 236. He lost a war fight by unanimous decision, which broke his 13 fight winning streak. He then defended his title against Frankie Edgar and won the fight via decision. He went on to lose to back-to-back controversial decision fight against Alexander Volkanovski. Many people thought that this may be the end of Max’s career but instead, he was just entering his prime.

Max faced Calvin Kattar on January 16, 2021, headlining the UFC on ABC 1 card. Max went on to put a beatdown an absolute one-sided fight where he showed there are levels to this game. Though Kattar is regarded as one the best boxers in UFC, Max outclassed him in all departments. He went on to set a bunch of records and broke his record in the fight which he won via lopsided decision. Holloway set the UFC single-fight records for total strikes landed and attempted, significant strikes landed and attempted, strike differential, distance strikes landed, significant head strikes landed and significant body strikes landed. He also set the record for strikes and significant strikes landed in the fourth round of the fight. And the most important factor that surprised everyone that he didn’t even spar for his fight.

It will be a very interesting fight to watch if Max Holloway vs. Yair Rodriguez gets rescheduled again. When the fight was announced before Rodriguez opened as the +300 underdog against Max who came in as the -375 favorite.