Max Holloway explains why he was pulled from UFC 226 fight against Brian Ortega

Former UFC featherweight Max Holloway is in good spirits and answering questions following his title loss to Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 245 this past weekend. On Wednesday, Holloway was a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience MMA Show to discuss a wide variety of topics from his title loss to the recent happenings in his career.

One situation Holloway discussed with Joe Rogan was the reasoning behind him being pulled from his scheduled fight against Brian Ortega at UFC 226 in the Summer of 2018. Rogan asked Holloway about the situation which saw “Blessed” undergo a series of tests, but nothing was every released to the public about Holloway’s health following the tests.

Although there were rumors that he suffered a stroke before the scheduled fight against Ortega, Holloway took Rogan through that fight week and then revealed a much deeper issue in the process.

“What was funny was that July fight, when we was getting ready, it was in Vegas right? I had to fly to New York to do my media day. So from Hawaii to New York, then we did a 12-hour media and then we went to Vegas, I think I got to Vegas on Thursday. Then you know, I just felt out of it. I wasn’t really cutting weight, just dieting and stuff. Even the water thing, it wasn’t water. I drink a load of water fight week. Even before the fight, we drink a load of water. Then a couple days passed and it just wasn’t going away.”

When Rogan followed up to Holloway’s initial explanation, Holloway revealed that it had to deal with something that was consumed, and it has all led to some changes to Holloway’s team and a lawsuit.

“I could tell you exactly what it was, it was something that was consumed. Like right now, not that much people know that I left my old management, I’m with new management now. My manager now he’s like a behavioral science guy, he’s probably watching this right now squirming when I’m talking about it. We got stuff going on, I’m looking to work on with lawyers and stuff and we plan on suing somebody. There’s a bunch of stuff I really can’t talk about, I probably shouldn’t be talking about it too much. But that’s what it is, something that was consumed.”

Holloway would go on to say that he couldn’t even admit whether it was a supplement or something else that was consumed and he would leave it in the hands of his new manager.

“For me, I’m all about keeping the main thing the main thing and the main thing for me is just fighting, and making sure whoever is in front of me, whatever cupcake it is, I go enjoy that cupcake while they [management] go do everything else for me.”

While Holloway couldn’t go too far into detail, it sounds like there will be legal proceedings relating to him being removed from his fight at UFC 226. Following his title loss to Alexander Volkanovski, Holloway released a classy statement honoring the new featherweight champion.

You can watch the full video of Holloway’s explanation below:

on 12/18/2019