Matt Brown Believes Max Holloway Beats Conor McGregor in a Rematch
Max Holloway’s win over Jose Aldo this past Saturday night not only solidified his reign as the UFC featherweight champion but it also notched his 12th victory in a row overall as he’s run through virtually ever contender at 145 pounds.
Holloway hasn’t tasted defeat since 2013 when he was just 21 years old as he faced off with Conor McGregor, who was making his second appearance in the UFC.
McGregor earned the win that night while also fighting through the third round on a torn ACL. Meanwhile, Holloway tweaked his ankle in the opening round, which didn’t help matters much when McGregor suddenly resorted to a takedown heavy attack late in the fight.
Four years later, McGregor is the UFC lightweight champion while Holloway has defined himself as the best featherweight in the sport and it seems at some point down the line that a rematch between these two fighters could take place. Holloway has stated numerous times he’s more than happy to run it back while McGregor has continued to tout his previous win against the Hawaiian whenever the subject comes up about a rematch.
UFC welterweight Matt Brown gave his thoughts on the fight when speaking on his “Fight Society” podcast this week after breaking down Holloway’s win against Aldo at UFC 218.
“The time between now and then if you look at what the two have been doing, Conor’s been fighting occasionally, of course very big fights, of course very, very tough opponents, winning pretty good. I guess his toughest fight was Nate Diaz where he gassed out, had problems. On the other hand, Max has been nothing but dominant, getting better every time we see him and fighting top competition on a far, far more consistent basis,” Brown said.
“I hate I’ve got to pick against Conor again. You can’t pick against Holloway right now. Conor hasn’t been in the MMA cage for how long now? Holloway’s looked invincible for a while now. I can’t find a way to give it to Conor.”
Of course, Brown will never count McGregor out of a fight because the 29-year old Irishman has pulled off more than a few surprises during his UFC career so disregarding what he could do would be crazy.
That being said, Brown just sees the performances that Holloway has put on recently and it shows tremendous growth in his overall mixed martial arts game that could give McGregor a lot of problems in a rematch.
“Conor’s definitely a guy you can’t count out. He’s got that power, he’s a very athletic guy but Holloway’s on point,” Brown said. “We’ve seen what he can do. This is originally why I picked Jose [Aldo] over Conor. We don’t know what Conor’s really capable of at this level, we don’t really know that he can fight guys at this level. We know what Aldo can do. We’ve seen him destroy top level competition for a long time. It’s sort of in some respects right now where we don’t really know where’s Conor’s at. We know where Holloway’s at.
“Holloway’s at the top of his game. We know he’s smashing guys. He just beat Aldo again. He beat [Ricardo] Lamas, just one guy after another. [Anthony] Pettis is probably the closest comparison to Conor, style wise, obviously we’ll find the differences there but style wise you’d have to compare those probably as similar. That doesn’t add up well for Conor.”
Right now, McGregor appears content to sit on the sidelines until sometime in 2018 as he continues to negotiate with the UFC on a new deal to book his return to action.
Holloway certainly isn’t going to wait around for McGregor to come looking for him and that’s why he’s already moved onto whatever opponent the UFC may throw at him next. Still, it’s impossible to ignore that if both fighters keep winning, a McGregor vs. Holloway 2 showdown could be a huge fight for the UFC.
Brown just doesn’t think it plays out very well for McGregor.
“While Max is out there getting better, improving as a fighter, Conor’s been getting better at being a boxer and probably a better businessman,” Brown said.
Listen to the rest of this week’s Fight Society podcast including a full breakdown of the action from UFC 218 as well as a vote for the best album of the year in 2017. Listen here or download and subscribe to the show via Apple Podcasts.
