Dana White shares his ideal plan for ‘all-time great’ Max Holloway after UFC 231

On Saturday night, in the main event of UFC 231, UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway defended his title for a second time with a stoppage defeat of the formerly undefeated Brian Ortega.

Shortly after Holloway’s impressive featherweight title defense, UFC President Dana White reiterated that he feels the featherweight champion would be wise to move up to the lightweight division, where he’d endure a less taxing weight-cut.

“Max is a grown man and we need to talk,” Dana White said of Max Holloway (transcript via MMA Fighting). “But I’d like to see Max go to ‘55 now. I think that the guy’s 27 going on 28 years old, he’s in the prime of his life, never looked better. Continues to improve with every single fight that he’s in and I think he’s done everything he can do at ‘45.

“Why keep cutting that weight? I think there’s some big things for him at ‘55.”

“If Holloway goes to ‘55, everybody in the top-five is a fun fight for him.”

While White acknowledged that the UFC featherweight division would take a real hit if Max Holloway moved up to lightweight, he assured that he simply wants what’s best for the Hawaiian.

“I want what’s right for Max,” Holloway said. “What’s right for Max might not necessarily be what’s right for the division, but we’ll figure that out. I think after his last issues I think it would be better for him physically and every other way to move up to 155 pounds. He has not said one word to me so we’ll see how he feels about that. He and I will talk about it and we’ll go from there.”

Whatever the case, the UFC President feels that, in Max Holloway, we’re watching one of the sport’s “all-time greats” perform.”

“It’s impossible not to talk about him among the all-time greats,” White said, heaping praise on the featherweight king.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 12/9/2018.