Max Holloway becomes first fighter in UFC history to land 3,000 total strikes

Max Holloway achieved yet another impressive feat after he became the first fighter in UFC history to land a total of 3,000 strikes.

'Blessed' reached the milestone after bombarding Yair Rodriguez with 251 total strikes en route to a unanimous decision victory at UFC Fight Night 197. The overall count of Holloway's strikes landed currently sits at 3,056.

The Hawaiian-born star also holds the record for most significant strikes landed (2,848). Holloway's January clash against Calvin Kattar saw him connect with the most significant strikes in a single fight (445), and the most significant strikes in a single round (141).

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Holloway sits alongside Georges St-Pierre (2,591), Frankie Edgar (2,479), Nate Diaz (2,386) and Jon Fitch (2,185) in the pantheon of the octagon's greatest volume strikers.

Although Holloway dominated the statistics on paper, his victory over Rodriguez was anything but easy. The top featherweight contenders engaged in a back-and-forth battle that ended up earning Fight of the Night honors.

The underdog Rodriguez pushed Holloway to the limit, cutting Holloway with a brutal elbow in the fifth round. However, the former champion held on to earn his second straight victory of 2021.

What's next for Max Holloway?

After another stellar showing, Max Holloway appears to be the favorite to challenge Alexander Volkanovski for the UFC featherweight title. Holloway and Volkanovski have fought twice before, with the Australian emerging victorious in both instances.

Both fights concluded with razor-thin decisions that could've gone either way. For that reason, Holloway might get a trilogy bout despite being down 0-2 to the reigning champ.

However, Holloway appears to be undecided as to what he might do next. 'Blessed' hinted that he's entertaining a move to the lightweight division to challenge Charles Oliveira for the title or a rematch with Conor McGregor.

In a recent interview with TMZ Sports, Holloway said:

"But, at the end of the day, UFC discussed with us a bunch of things, a bunch of possibilities. I got a win over the 155 champ in their division. I'm on a short list for Conor McGregor. Always on a shortlist for that fight. I'm the best boxer in the UFC."

Watch Max Holloway full interview below:

About the author

Writing out of the red corner from the Philippines, Rafael has been entrenched in the world of mixed martial arts for the past five years.

He kickstarted his journalistic career with Rappler.com and had continued covering the world's most violent sport for the newspaper Manila Bulletin. He joined Sportskeeda MMA in 2021 and has garnered over 9 million reads.

The combat journalist is also a television sports reporter for the Manila-based network PTV 4.

In his spare time, Rafael trains in boxing and has sparred with MMA pros Rabin Catalan and John Tirona (he obviously got obliterated).

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Edited by C. Nayak