Saturday night was a big show for the UFC, as the event saw the crowning of a new champion.
Sine 2014, Holloway has dominated the featherweight division, defeating talents such as Frankie Edgar, José Aldo, Brian Ortega, and Anthony Pettis during his tear through the division. The Hawaii native won the featherweight championship at UFC 212 in June 2017 and managed to successfully defend his belt four times.
However, despite walking into his fight against Alexander Volkanovski as the favorite, the 28-year-old’s title reign officially came to an end. Not surprisingly, the fight was a exciting back-and-forth contest between the featherweights; however, following Volkanovshki’s work on Holloway’s leg in the early rounds, the challenger’s strategy would pay off after round two.
Ultimately, Volkanovski would get the win via unanimous decision and walked out of UFC 245 as the new featherweight champion. Holloway gave his opponent a ton of credit during the fight; however, it’s clear that he doesn't agree with the judge's scoring of the bout (transcript courtesy of
MMAFigthing):
“First round, I was feeling him out, so he did what he did in the first round,” Holloway said when asked how he thought the fight was going as it was happening.
“Second round I thought I was taking over and then three, four, five, I thought was mine.“But they saw it another way, there’s only three opinions that matter. Like the great Burt Watson said, don’t leave that s*it to the judges, they’re gonna make you cry. They made me cry twice in 2019, so let’s choo-choo forward to 2020, new year, new me.”