UFC President Dana White believes there’s cause for a third fight between Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski.
Holloway and Volkanovski have fought twice previously.
The pair first met at UFC 245 in December, when Holloway attempted to defend the UFC featherweight title against the streaking Australian. On that night, Volkanovski defeated Holloway with a unanimous decision to claim the title for himself.
The pair then met for a second time at UFC 251 last weekend in Abu Dhabi, when Holloway attempted to reclaim the title in an immediate rematch with Volkanovski. After five closely contested rounds, the judges awarded the rematch to Volkanovski. However, many fans felt that Holloway had done enough to earn the win and the title.
While Holloway is now officially 0-2 against Volkanovski, which wouldn’t ordinarily warrant a trilogy, White believes a third fight between them has some merit.
“I agree [Holloway won the rematch],” White told Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports. “It’s probably not tough to give him the third fight considering how that thing went down. But I don’t know. Let both these guys go home, spend some time [off].”
White added that this is a tough situation for Volkanovski, who returned home with the featherweight title, but without the confidence of the many fans who scored the fight for Holloway.
“It sucks for Volkanovski, to have the title, go home, with everybody saying ‘you didn’t win the fight, you didn’t win the fight.” White said. “He won the fight. He won the fight. He got the decision. You can agree with it, disagree with it, whatever you want. The judges that night gave him the fight.”
While White seems to be interested in a trilogy fight between Volkanovski and Holloway, he acknowledged that he’s yet to decide what’s next for the pair.
“I gotta get back to the drawing board and figure out what’s next for these two.”
Does a third fight between Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski interest you?