{"id":273728,"date":"2018-04-02T10:51:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T17:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=273728"},"modified":"2018-04-02T10:51:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-02T17:51:57","slug":"manager-recounts-max-holloways-initial-reaction-to-khabib-nurmagomedov-bout-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/max-holloway\/manager-recounts-max-holloways-initial-reaction-to-khabib-nurmagomedov-bout-offer\/","title":{"rendered":"Manager recounts Max Holloway&#8217;s initial reaction to Khabib Nurmagomedov bout offer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday afternoon, we learned that Tony Ferguson had been forced out of his UFC 223 lightweight title showdown with Khabib Nurmagomedov with a leg injury. Somewhere amid the fallout of <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dana-white\/dana-white-claims-ufc-is-done-trying-to-make-tony-ferguson-vs-khabib-nurmagomedov-bout\/\">this unfortunate twist of fate<\/a>, the UFC contacted its reigning featherweight champion Max Holloway, and <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/conor-mcgregor\/dana-white-explains-why-conor-mcgregor-wasnt-khabib-nurmagomedovs-replacement-opponent\/\">offered him<\/a> a last-minute fight with Nurmagomedov. Flaunting some seriously hefty\u00a0<em>cojones,\u00a0<\/em>Holloway accepted this offer, and will now battle the undefeated Nurmagomedov for lightweight gold in the new UFC 223 main event.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Monday&#8217;s edition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/2018\/4\/2\/17187148\/the-mma-hour-with-khabib-nurmagomedov-amp-joanna-jedrzejczyk-amp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The MMA Hour,<\/a> Holloway&#8217;s manager Brain Butler-Au shared Holloway&#8217;s reaction to this insane turn of events.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Max already had his eyes on both Tony and Khabib for some time,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He actually said it in the last media thing we did, the big media day. The only concern that I had was &#8216;can he make the weight in time,&#8217; you know? Like, [UFC 223 is] six days away, and he&#8217;s got an 18 hour flight from Hawaii to hop on. But Max didn&#8217;t hesitate at all. He immediately said to me, his exact words were: &#8216;let&#8217;s fucking do it bro, this is how legends are made.&#8217; That&#8217;s exactly what he said to me. And I said, we gotta let [nutritionist] George [Lockhart] crunch the numbers, cause I don&#8217;t want the weight cut&#8230; I&#8217;m sure he can make the weight, but I want him to make it healthy, and I don&#8217;t want it to have any long-term effects on him. So George crunched the numbers, it took about an hour, hour and a half, for George to do all that, check everything out. He came back, said he can do it. He said it&#8217;s going to be a grind for him, but if anyone can do it, he knows Max can, and he can do it in a healthy manner. After that, it was just on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While Holloway&#8217;s team is confident he can make 155 on 6 days notice, they did ask the UFC if the bout with Nurmagomedov could be contested in the 170-pound welterweight division, where the cut would be less strenuous.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We said we would do it at welterweight, but the UFC wanted it to be a title fight. So we reevaluated, and Max, like I said, he said that quote.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Do you think Max Holloway can pull off an upset for the ages and become a two-division champ this weekend?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPenn.com<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 4\/2\/2018.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday afternoon, we learned that Tony Ferguson had been forced out of his UFC 223 lightweight title showdown with Khabib Nurmagomedov with a leg injury. Somewhere amid the fallout of this unfortunate twist of fate, the UFC contacted its reigning featherweight champion Max Holloway, and offered him a last-minute fight with Nurmagomedov. Flaunting some seriously [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":271839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10147],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Manager recounts Max Holloway&#039;s initial reaction to Khabib Nurmagomedov bout offer | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/max-holloway\/manager-recounts-max-holloways-initial-reaction-to-khabib-nurmagomedov-bout-offer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Manager recounts Max Holloway&#039;s initial reaction to Khabib Nurmagomedov bout offer | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday afternoon, we learned that Tony Ferguson had been forced out of his UFC 223 lightweight title showdown with Khabib Nurmagomedov with a leg injury. 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