Max Holloway weighs in on UFC 306 main event

As Saturday’s UFC 306 inches closer, more and more fighters are weighing in on the fight card’s main event between bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley and top contender Merab Dvalishvili.  

Former featherweight champion and ‘BMF’ titleholder Max Holloway gave his prediction for the main event matchup on Thursday via his YouTube channel   

“Merab, great cardio.  Great pressure.  Great fighter, but one hole in his game that we’ve seen over and over again is he gets caught.  He gets caught,” Holloway said.  “He gets caught early.  It’s almost like he gets caught early and then he turns on and it’s a fight.  He said he needs to get woken up.  He gets caught.  He gets woken up and finally turns on and the gears start working and everything starts flowing and he gets after it.”  

“But if there’s one guy in your guys’ division, in the bantamweight division, you do not want to get caught by it is Sean,” Holloway continued.  “A lot of guys tease Sean about how he’s skinny and lanky and long and looks brittle, blah, blah, blah.  ‘He looks like this.  He dyes his hair.’  That’s just who he is.  That’s just how he is.  That’s how he carries himself, but you can not take away that this guy can fight.

“This guy can crack.  He knocks out people.  He lands.  He’s a sharpshooter and my belief in this fight – a lot of people have been asking me to see who I pick – I’m going Sean, man.  No disrespect to Merab.  Merab is great.  He’s good everywhere.  He’s great everywhere, good stand up, great cardio, good grappling, good wrestling.  But if you do the mistakes, if you get caught clean by Sean and Sean knows you’re hurt, he’s going to find another shot to put you down.  That’s just it.”

Holloway is scheduled to face champion Ilia Topuria for the featherweight title on October 26 at UFC 308.