One of the greatest rivalries in UFC history is officially over.
Max Holloway was adamant he won both of the first two fights against Alexander Volkanovski, the latter taking the featherweight title in the first and retaining it in the second.
But after Volkanovski made it a clean sweep with a dominant unanimous decision win yesterday, there could be no doubt left from even the most ardent Holloway fan about who the better fighter was.
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The man himself conceded as much in a social media post today, cheekily joking about a fourth fight being needed before praising his opponent.
“I’m still up 2-0 on knockdowns for trilogy. Prob gonna need a 4th to settle this,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Just playing. Congrats to my brother Alex Volkanovski. Go get that 55 [referring to the 155 pound weight class] strap. You earned the shot. You’re #1 P4P right now.”
Volkanovski truly has no more worlds left to conquer at featherweight 65.8 kg and spoke publicly after his win about moving up to chase gold at 70.3 kg.
“I just proved to youse that I want to be in the octagon as much as possible, I want to be busy. I don’t think that this division itself can keep me busy,” he said after the fight.
“I want to move up, go for double champ, and I’ll keep two divisions busy.
“So Charles [former lightweight champ Charles Oliveira], or whoever gets that belt, nothing but respect – I’d love to move up, get that double champ status, and if I get both belts, I’ll keep them both busy. Let’s go.”
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In addition to the UFC’s weight classes, the organisation also has a central ranking system that judges the best pound-for-pound fighters across all of their divisions.
Volkanovski currently sits second behind welterweight champion Kamaru Usman (Kiwi middleweight Israel Adesanya is third), but plenty of fans believe the Australian should be number one, such has been the dominance of all of his wins.
Now you can add Holloway himself to that list of admirers.
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