Max Holloway has made weight for his featherweight bout with Frankie Edgar at UFC 240.
The defending champion has notoriously struggled to hit the 145 mark and last year was removed from a lightweight title bout against Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 223 when the New York State Athletic Commission deemed him unfit to continue.
While he needed the towel, Holloway did make weight this time around and is ready for the former UFC lightweight champion on Saturday night.
UFC featherweight champ Max Holloway makes weight for his #UFC240 title defense against Frankie Edgar ?. How do you think he'll do against Frankie Edgar? pic.twitter.com/GcImloSkaQ
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) July 27, 2019
It means, barring disaster, featherweight contender Alex Volkanovski will not be needed. It was confirmed on Friday by UFC vice-president Marc Ratner that Volkanosvki was present in case there was another issue. The back-up option also weighed in on Friday.
I spoke with UFC VP Marc Ratner who said that Alex Volkanovski is here and the expectation is that he will weigh in and in the event that a replacement is needed for the main event, he is on standby.
— Aaron Bronsteter (@aaronbronsteter) July 26, 2019
Speaking to TSN, Volkanovski explained he only learned of the news "a few weeks ago.”
He went on to outline the measures he went through to be there.
"The UFC said ‘look, we’ve learned our lesson, we want you to officially make weight.’ They’re obviously paying me and stuff like that.’"
It was 37-plus hours in terms of travel just to get here, and I had to drive through the border [into Canada]
I went from New Zealand to Sydney, Sydney to San Francisco, drove from Seattle to Vancouver — did the visa through the border that way — then flew from Vancouver to Edmonton. It was like 38 hours or something like that. It was crazy. That rattled me all week.
“It left me pretty heavy all week, to be honest,” Volkanovski said. “I had to do a pretty big weight cut. In saying that, we got it done. I’m a professional guy."
dude is casually cutting to championship weight *just in case* he needs to get locked in a cage with Max Holloway or Frankie Edgar
different breeds https://t.co/mV0Xc3sKYw— Phil Murphy (@Phil_Sports) July 26, 2019
Holloway vs Edgar is not the only exciting showdown on Saturday. Tonight's co-main sees Cris Cyborg up against Felicia Spencer.
