It was an incredibly poorly kept secret, and an absolute no-brainer anyway, and now it’s confirmed. Max “Blessed” Holloway will fight Dustin “The Diamond” Poirier for the BMF - “baddest motherfucker” - belt at UFC 318 in New Orleans.
It will be Poirier’s final MMA fight, and he’ll be hoping to bow out with a three-peat win over Holloway - the second at Lightweight - but the meaning for the Pacific Islander is a little more complex.
Of course, Holloway will be wanting to retain his BMF belt and avenge his losses to Poirier, but if he does that, what next?
There may be the possibility, in due course, of a rematch with former Featherweight champion Ilia Topuria, perhaps even for the Lightweight strap if Islam Makhachev loses to Topuria and/or moves up to Welterweight, but that seems both fanciful trajectorising - if it’s not a word, it should be - and arguably a fool’s errand.
It might happen, as MMA can throw up surprises and sometimes surprises in sequence, but it’s not likely. Holloway isn’t getting any younger himself, despite being three years Poirier’s junior at 33, with significant cage mileage and after recently experiencing his first knockout loss, he might be best considering a future outside of the octagon.
This is no insult to him. The former Featherweight champion’s career has taken in awe-inspiring deconstructions of greats such as José Aldo and Brian Ortega, epic battles with many people’s Featherweight GOAT, Alexander Volkanovski, and unforgettable knockouts of the Korean Zombie and Justin Gaethje - and so much more - but can those heights ever be hit again?
The reality is that a victory over Poirier may be the perfect end to his career. In fact, a toe-to-toe war - not unlike the Lightweight Interim Title clash against The Diamond in 2019 - win or lose, would perhaps be fitting.
Even if Holloway ends the bout boasting back-to-back knockout wins in his BMF championship, is a subsequent step worth taking? Even if he’s fast-tracked to a title fight, facing Makhachev or Topuria when 34 or thereabouts could be disastrous and bring about a sad end to a spectacular career.
Or maybe it’ll be Paddy Pimblett, but does the risk-reward of that fight make sense? Does dropping down to Featherweight for the tetralogy clash with Volkanovski - and one last shot at regaining the Featherweight belt - make more?
It could. But the uncertainty brought by the ifs and buts make the aforementioned trajectorising hard work, and taking time that Blessed is no longer, well, blessed with.
And we’ve mainly concerned ourselves with optimal scenarios. The outgoing Poirier, with a wonderful career to look back on himself, is very capable of knocking Holloway out - 33-year-old, no-longer-un-knocked-out Holloway - and where does the latter go from there?
UFC, get two montages prepped for 19th July 2025. One will definitely be used, and the other really should be, and four gloves on the canvas would leave not a single dry eye amongst all those looking on.
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