Chael Sonnen is unhappy with Max Holloway. The reason: Holloway believes a rubber match should settle the score in his rivalry with Conor McGregor.
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Thirteen years after they fought for the first time, the pair met again for a rematch at UFC 329, which took place at the T-Mobile Arena last Saturday. While Conor McGregor won the first meeting by unanimous decision, the rematch ended in dramatic fashion after the Irish star’s knee buckled, ending the bout just 69 seconds into the opening round. The fight was stopped, leaving the score between McGregor and Holloway even. Still, not many seem excited by the idea of a third fight. Speaking about Max Holloway‘s call-out, Sonnen offered a scathing critique on his YouTube channel.
“The dumbest thing of the year, the gold, silver, and bronze all went to Max,” Sonnen said. “Max shows up to the press conference, and he says, ‘Hey, I don’t care how long I have to wait. I want to do a trilogy with Conor.'”
“For Max to go and call for a trilogy fight, are you kidding me? You want to fight the hurt guy? You want to fight the injured guy? You want to fight the guy that just gave you an effort, and it was 40 seconds, and you got the biggest check of your year, of your career? Are you sure you want to call out that guy?”
Sonnen’s frustration with Holloway’s move largely boils down to the way things are currently stacked up for the Hawaii native. Coming off a loss to Charles Oliveira, where he lost the UFC BMF title, Holloway made his welterweight debut with the McGregor fight.
Viewed in that context, Holloway, who will turn 35 this December, could have called out other top-ranked contenders to raise his stock within the division. A matchup against a fighter who is coming off a serious injury that now reportedly requires surgery barely makes any sense.
As a result, some, including Sonnen, likely felt Holloway was passing up a golden opportunity that he earned without much effort. The TKO victory over a star attraction like McGregor made Holloway an attractive opponent against whom many contenders would have loved to test themselves. In that scenario, Holloway would have benefited monetarily while also extending his career deeper into its latter stages.
However, setting aside Sonnen’s critique, the situation deserves to be viewed from Holloway’s side as well.
The win over McGregor seems to have given the former featherweight champion a blueprint he could use to inflict a legacy-defining loss on McGregor. If that happens, Holloway could find himself alongside Dustin Poirier, the only man to have defeated the Irish superstar twice.
At this stage of a career that has seen him face some of the biggest names in the UFC and deliver arguably the greatest clash the promotion has ever seen when he fought Justin Gaethje at UFC 300, Holloway could be aiming for a fight where his prospects of winning are comparatively high.
Lastly, the welterweight division is one of the UFC’s deepest weight classes. Headed by Islam Makhachev, the division features top-rated contenders against whom Holloway may have far less chance of winning.
Those arguments likely sum up the reason why Holloway called out McGregor. That Sonnen and others do not like it forms another part of the story, one that Holloway may not necessarily be considering either.
