For the third week in a row, we've been treated to a really good weekend of fights, especially in the main events. This week featured number 1 ranked featherweight contender and fan favorite Max "Blessed" Holloway up against number 3 ranked contender Yair Rodriguez, who was coming off of a two year absence. Having not seen Yair in the cage for so long and him also having had COVID, it was hard to know what to expect from him. We knew he was an elite talent, but given the expected rust, a matchup against Max Holloway seemed like way too tall of a task for him to overcome given the circumstances. At this point, when Holloway fights, anything short of excellence is disappointing and I don't think we saw the very best version of Max Holloway on Saturday, but he was still plenty good. The first round started with Rodriguez largely getting the better of Max in a lot of the exchanges. One of Max's best attributes is his durability and that really helped him get through the early going. There was an exchange later in the first round where Max landed a basic 1-2 combination, with the straight right hand connecting hard under Yair's left eye, opening a cut and snapping his head back. This turned out to be a sort of turning point in the fight as I think that shot damaged Yair more than he let on and the rest of the fight swung in Max's favor. We got to see more of Max's ground game than we have in a long time in this one as he landed a takedown and had some ground control time after Rodriguez was knocked off balance a couple of times. The story in this one despite those details was once again Holloway's volume striking as he was able to overwhelm Rodriguez for much of the rest of the fight. Rodriguez did show a lot of heart the whole way and was even able to put up a good effort in the 5th that got him a second round in his favor on some score cards. After the fight, I saw Rodriguez sort of leaning on his coaches and putting his arms around their shoulders to help him stand. I didn't remember seeing him hurt at any point, so I figured he was just exhausted, which no one would blame him for. After the fight, pictures surfaced on social media, I know the MMA Junkie twitter had one of them, of Rodriguez's foot. It was extremely swollen and bruised to an extent that seemed to suggest some sort of injury more than just the trauma of kicking someone, but obviously I'm not a professional. While we're on the topic of Rodriguez, I'll start with him in the further breakdown.
All things considered, I don't think it was possible for Rodriguez to look any better. He had a great first round and then ultimately was overwhelmed by Holloway's pressure, pace, and output, which most people are. Even though he lost, I don't think Yair lost any stock at all. If anything, he positioned himself for another big fight, which could potentially represent a number one contender fight if things break the right way for him. It remains to be seen at this point, but as long as his foot isn't severely injured, I would expect that Rodriguez doesn't want to remain out for long. Calvin Kattar is already set to fight Giga Chikadze in January and Josh Emmett will fight Dan Ige next month at UFC 269, so those four are probably out when it comes to being Yair's next opponent. I suppose it's not impossible for him to get the loser of Ige and Emmett, but that would probably set Rodriguez up for another longer layoff. Besides that, the way I currently see it is that there are three options for Yair. The first is the rematch between him and the Korean Zombie. Chan Sung Jung is coming off of a win over Dan Ige, so it doesn't set up perfectly with the UFC usually opting to pair two guys trending in the same direction. Obviously this would be a good matchup and their first fight was going to go the Zombie's way if not for the last second elbow from Rodriguez, so maybe there's some interest to make that fight on all parts, but for some reason, that fight just doesn't really excite me that much. It would be a fun fight between two great competitors, but I just feel like the UFC has been making rematches too quickly lately and to do it with this, especially in a non title situation with other options, I just don't feel that it's necessary. Another option would be the surging Arnold Allen. This would be a pretty big step up for Allen, who's best wins are Gilbert Melendez and Sodiq Yusuff, but within the next year or so, the UFC is going to have to at least try to get some new contenders ready. We can only have Holloway vs Volkanovski so many times and now Brian Ortega has lost in a title fight twice in pretty devastating fashion. This fight would put either Rodriguez or Allen a push closer to being the next guy to challenge for the title. Obviously Giga is getting that push too, but there's going to need to be some more options. I guess the main knock on this one would be that Allen is undefeated in the UFC and they would be giving Yair a tough fight coming off of a loss, but this is such a huge step up in competition for Allen that I don't think its as big of an issue as it would be in the Korean Zombie rematch. The final option and my personal favorite would be to have Yair fight Brian Ortega. Maybe it's some sort of personal bias, but just seeing and typing "Yair Rodriguez vs Brian Ortega" gets me excited. That's a fight that has some real juice in my opinion. It has a little more star power and is more than capable of main eventing a fight night or being a top three fight on a PPV card. This is also the only match up I've outlined where both guys are coming off a loss. The creative striking of Rodriguez juxtaposed with the high level jiu-jitsu of Ortega intrigues me a lot. To me, that's the first fight I would try to make for the both of them whenever they are both able to fight. I suppose Edson Barboza is an option, but that would be dropping Rodriguez really far down the rankings. It would be a really fun fight stylistically and Barboza is coming off a loss, which are two things that the UFC cares about. However, for some reason, this just doesn't feel super likely to happen for me. To summarize that, I was really impressed with Yair's performance and if it were up to me, he would be matched up with Brian Ortega next.
When it comes to Max, I don't think I really need to break down his performance. We all know Max is one of the best boxers in the entire UFC and his cardio and output are unmatched. We did get to see a takedown and ground control from Max, which we haven't see in awhile, but it's good to see that Max still has skills down on the ground if need be. The general consensus is that Max will fight Alex Volkanovski a third time for the featherweight title next. I think that fight still has plenty of intrigue due to how close the first two have been, despite both being scored in Volkanovski's favor. Max has had a masterful performance against Calvin Kattar and a second good performance in Saturday's win over Rodriguez. I think that is enough to have earned him a third opportunity against Volkanovski, especially since no one else has really stepped up to take that opportunity from Max. I ultimately think this is what we will see happen, especially since Max has said in interviews that he had the Volkanovski trilogy before this fight even happened. What will really be interesting is to see what will happen if Max regains his title in the trilogy. Given how good both Max and Volkanovski are, even if they don't do the 4th fight right away, they would likely find each other again at the top of the featherweight division. Just because that's the obvious choice and probably the most popular, doesn't mean it's the only choice for Holloway. Holloway and Conor McGregor have been interacting on social media for what seems like forever at this point. It seems likely that we get Holloway vs McGregor 2 at some point, depending on how many fights Conor has left in him, but I'm not sure that it happens soon. Conor was injured in July and it was estimated that it would be approximately a year before he returned. That's another 8 months from now, so I think Max gets the title shot sometime in the Spring or early Summer depending on his health coming out of this fight. I know that's a little short for the winner of a huge fight, but honestly, we know who Max is and his options are limited due to his tremendous success. I look forward to that trilogy a lot and can't wait to see when it is booked.
Another great Saturday has provided us with an interesting potential future for each of our main event fighters. Now that the cards have slowed down a little, I get to do more than just previews and fallouts, but that also means I have to come up with ideas. If you have any topics that you want to see in the coming weeks, leave them in the comments below. Would you guys want to see a personal P4P top 15 or maybe a GOAT conversation type post? I'll come up with something for the rest of the week. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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