More Than Blessed: Max Holloway Continues To Develop As He Moves Towards the Featherweight Mix

By Raphael Garcia

Max Holloway is the epitome of steady improvement in MMA. Since joining the UFC three short years ago, the 23-year-old Hawaiian competitor has continued to get better with every outing. With his second fight in 2015 booked within minutes of his first, this steady development may help him become a contender to the featherweight crown sooner than later.

With 11 fights in the Octagon since February 2012, it’s easy to forget how young Holloway really is. He joined the organization on short notice at UFC 143 to take on another young star in Dustin Poirier. While he was soundly defeated in that contest, that opened up a door that would lead his career to the next level. Since then, he’s continued to improve in a way that is still rare in MMA.

Looking at Holloway’s Fight Metric report, it’s clear that he relies upon activity as a main strength of his game. In seven of his eight UFC wins, he has out-struck his opponents. Justin Lawrence is the only competitor that landed more strikes than Holloway, but he was still finished via knockout in the second round of their UFC 150 bout.

Holloway’s defeats foster the idea that he’s continually getting better. He has been defeated by Poirier, Conor McGregor, and Dennis Bermudez, three men that are considered top ten contenders in the UFC’s featherweight division. However, save for the first-round submission defeat in his debut, he wasn’t completely outclassed.

The fight against Bermudez at UFC 160 is perhaps the most telling. “The Menace” was in the midst of his best career run to date, but Holloway stuck with him in every aspect of the fight. As with most split decision wins, this fight was close enough that Holloway could have walked out of the cage as the winner. A win there would have quickly catapulted his career, but even in defeat, he responded with another strong showing in his next fight, before scoring victories in his next five fights.

Although McGregor was able to outperform Holloway over three rounds in their UFC Fight Night 26 matchup, Holloway is the only individual the Irishman hasn’t finished in his run towards his title shot against Jose Aldo. “Notorious” may have been too much for Holloway at that point in his career, but it will be interesting to see what would occur should these two men rematch two or three years down the line.

So what are the next stages of Holloway’s growth as a fighter?

First, he should look at improving his overall wrestling and transition grappling. He has yet to find a way to land takedowns on his opponents consistently. In fact, he’s only scored one takedown in all of his Octagon appearances. According to Fight Metric, his average number of takedowns landed per 15 minutes is only 0.12. That will not be good enough against the elite fighters in the division. He’s due to face Cub Swanson at UFC on Fox 15 and while Swanson has become known as a knockout artist, he does have the ability to land takedowns on less competent opponents.

Beyond Swanson, one must wonder how Holloway would do against the likes of a Frankie Edgar, Chad Mendes, or even Nik Lentz. Those men would immediately take Holloway to the ground to score on positioning and potentially beat him into a finish. Even a pairing against Charles Oliveria would be dangerous at this point in time.

That brings up the second point of consideration when discussing Holloway’s development . The UFC should take care to pair him up in the “right” way, to protect him with careful matchmaking. The Swanson fight should have been avoided at this point in time, as a win will put him in line for a direct confrontation with some of the aforementioned competitors. However, if Swanson stops Holloway’s surge, he need not fall too far down the rankings, though more careful matchmaking would be advisable going forward.

The UFC has a glaring need to develop the young fighters on its roster into fighters fans will pay to watch in the future. Max Holloway could become one such individual. His current run has been fun to watch, but there are still areas for him to improve. And notwithstanding his current pace of improvement, that is exactly what the fighter known as “Blessed” will need to accomplish if he wants to get past Cub Swanson.