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Max Holloway is an incredible fighter. In fact, he is one of the greatest featherweights in MMA history. Despite his Hall of Fame-worthy career and the legendary moments he's given, the strength of his legacy cannot be used to discount those of other featherweights when determining who the greatest is.
Two other UFC fighters might have a stronger claim to the title of featherweight GOAT. Both are past opponents of Holloway's, with one of them holding wins over him.
Alexander Volkanovski and Jose Aldo all have stronger claims than Holloway. Volkanovski remains undefeated in the weight class, with his only loss coming at welterweight. Jose Aldo went on an unprecedented championship run that remains unmatched by any featherweight to this day.
While Holloway is great, these two others might be greater. This list examines 5 reasons why Max Holloway isn't the greatest featherweight of all time.
#5 Jose Aldo faced stronger opposition
The list of opponents Max Holloway has bested in his run as a featherweight includes the likes of Cub Swanson, Charles Oliveira, Jeremy Stephens, Ricardo Lamas, Anthony Pettis, Jose Aldo, Brian Ortega, Frankie Edgar, Calvin Kattar, and Yair Rodriguez.
All are elite-level fighters, and four are former champions. Charles Oliveira went on to become the UFC lightweight champion while Aldo is the former featherweight champion, and both Pettis and Edgar are former holders of the lightweight title. However, some of Holloway's wins have asterixes.
Anthony Pettis was a fighter that MMA passed by at that point in his career. He was 1-3 in his last four fights by the time he faced Holloway. The loss to Holloway became one of many he suffered moving forward as he struggled to string wins together, winning one bout before losing the next.
It was only four years after the Holloway loss that Pettis managed to win two fights in a row. One of the opponents he faced was Donald Cerrone, who was 0-4 in his last four fights at the time and has not won a fight since. Charles Oliveira is not the same fighter at lightweight that he was at featherweight.
At featherweight in the UFC, Oliveira is 7-5, having missed weight four times and losing to Holloway due to an esophagus injury.
Similarly, when Holloway fought Frankie Edgar, he was on the decline and was 3-2 by the time the two locked horns. Edgar has gone 1-3 after the Holloway loss.
Jose Aldo, on the other hand, defeated Cub Swanson, Chad Mendes, Frankie Edgar, Chan Sung Jung, Ricardo Lamas, Urijah Faber, Kenny Florian, Jeremy Stephens, and Renato Moicano when they were all in the prime of their careers.
#4 Jose Aldo has more title defenses
The number of times a fighter successfully defends their title is often used as a metric to determine said fighter's greatness. Opinions on who the greatest fighter is will often vary, but statistics do not lie.
Logic once dictated that only deserving fighters earned title shots. While this may no longer apply in the UFC, when Jose Aldo was the reigning featherweight champion, most of the challengers he faced were deserving fighters on impressive win streaks.
Thus, the number of times a champion defended their title correlated to their success as a fighter, as they were facing elite competition. Aldo managed to successfully defend his featherweight title seven times while Max Holloway managed only three successful title defenses before losing the belt to Alexander Volkanovski.
Aldo was a more dominant and successful champion than Holloway was, turning away every challenger for four years while Max Holloway defended the title for two. Statistically, Aldo was, at the very least, a greater champion.
#3 Aldo is a two-time featherweight champion
Jose Aldo held the UFC featherweight title for five years, losing it in his fifth year to Conor McGregor in what is arguably the most well-known knockout in UFC history.
Yet, after capturing the title, McGregor exhibited zero interest in defending his newly acquired championship, eventually forcing the UFC's hand. The Irishman was stripped of his belt and at UFC 200, Jose Aldo rebounded by dismantling Frankie Edgar for a second time to recapture the featherweight championship.
Outside of Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones, TJ Dillashaw, Cain Velasquez, and Dominick Cruz, not many champions in recent memory who have lost their titles have managed to regain them.
This places Aldo in rare company. Holloway, by comparison, has attempted to recapture his featherweight title from Volkanovski once, failing in his initial attempt. He is scheduled to face the reigning featherweight champion at UFC 276 in what will be his second attempt at regaining the belt.
Although Aldo lost the title soon after to Holloway, that doesn't discount the Brazilian's standing in UFC featherweight history. No one, for example, would ever assert that Chris Weidman is a greater middleweight than Anderson Silva because he defeated him twice. He still does not match the longevity of Silva's win streak or the number of title defenses Silva managed.
#2 Max Holloway lost to Volkanovski twice
While Aldo's two losses to Max Holloway cannot be used to discredit the Brazilian's legacy as arguably the greatest featherweight of all time, Holloway's losses to Volkanovski could be used to make a case for the Australian.
Both Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski have the same number of successful title defenses. The only difference is that one of Volkanovski's three title defenses came against Holloway himself.
Both fighters are contemporaries of one another, with only three years separating them in age. With both having an equal number of title defenses, while one fighter holds several victories over the other, it becomes difficult to argue against the fighter with the wins being greater than their opposition.
While Volkanovski's two wins over Max Holloway are controversial, his second victory being especially scrutinized, the Australian will have yet another opportunity to cement his superiority over his rival by claiming a third victory in their trilogy fight at UFC 276.
#1 Volkanovski is undefeated at featherweight
While Max Holloway holds the record for the longest win streak in UFC featherweight history, Alexander Volkanovski is undefeated in the weight class. The sole loss of Volkanovski's career came at welterweight.
In his featherweight career, the Australian has been spotless, overcoming every single opponent put in front of him. Max Holloway, by contrast, has lost at featherweight.
He lost his debut fight in the division against Dustin Poirier, while also bearing losses to Conor McGregor, Dennis Bermudez, and Volkanovski himself.
Volkanovski, however, has no losses in the weight class and looks primed to surpass Max Holloway's win streak in the UFC featherweight division.
Furthermore, if he successfully overcomes Holloway for a third time in their upcoming UFC 276 matchup, he will surpass the Hawaiian's title defense record.
Few other fighters can claim to be unbeaten in their weight class. Volkanovski is one of the few, and given his past victories over Max Holloway and their equal number of title defenses, he can be confidently classified as a greater featherweight than the former champion.
