Max Holloway’s coach breaks down matchup against ‘oversized bantamweight’ Ilia Topuria

April 23, 2024 8:00 pm ET

Max Holloway’s coach believes Ilia Topuria’s style works in their favor.

Holloway (26-7 MMA, 22-7 UFC) captured the BMF title with a last-second knockout of Justin Gaethje in their lightweight bout at UFC 300. He has since gone back-and-forth with featherweight champion Topuria (15-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC), who could be his next fight.

Holloway’s coach, Ivan Flores, was asked about Topuria’s skills. Flores praised the champion but pointed to the size advantage Holloway would have. Topuria competed twice at 135 pounds, missing weight in his second fight. He was ineligible to win the Cage Warriors bantamweight title after coming in 4.4 pounds over the limit.

“He’s a pretty good boxer, you know. I think his hand speed stands out. It looks like he punches pretty hard,” Flores told Luke Thomas. “He’s aggressive, you know. He’s got a lot of confidence, but the biggest physical takeaways would be that he definitely has hand speed.

“I would say, in a way though, he almost seems like an oversized bantamweight. Just because his frame and his stature and then along with his speed, it does seem like he’s kind of an oversized bantamweight a little bit that has the attributes and has the skill to fight up at featherweight.”

Flores also sees Topuria’s head-hunting, pressure-forward approach bringing out the best in Holloway.

“We definitely like a guy that wants to come forward against Max,” Flores said. “Max is really good at fighting backwards, as well as, you know, taking a guy that wants to stay there or be there to land on him with intention. Max is really good with dealing with that. We like what he brings.

“Usually guys that have that type of offensive firepower, it kind of usually works in our favor because they really believe in it. They want to land, they believe in it, so they’re going to tend to be a little bit more there in front of you. The interesting thing to see is at what point, if that fight does happen, at what point does Ilia turn into a grappler because I think that has to happen.”

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