Max Holloway vs. Alexander Volkanovski Analysis & Prediction
Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
The Who
Hawaii’s favorite son enters this matchup on a knife’s edge. Max might still very well be the P4P #1 fighter in the world (though Khabib’s recent victory over Dustin Poirier might have supplanted him), but this is a uniquely dangerous predicament for one of the sport’s most consistent fighters. Given the quality of the fight and Max’s effort, I don’t hold the FOTY loss to Poirier against him that much. A fairly uninspiring decision win over an aged Frankie Edgar? Slightly more dubious. Perhaps Holloway used the Edgar fight to shake off cobwebs from the recent Poirier war, but he can’t afford to do that here.
On the other side of this matchup, Alexander Volkanovski made his way past some softballs and some absolute terrors in his UFC run. His victory over Chad Mendes almost certainly should’ve catapulted him over Edgar for a title shot. Being forced to fight Jose Aldo afterwards was ridiculous. Still, despite an increasingly impressive resume, Volkanovski still feels largely blue-collar in his approach. This is an awesome fight, but don’t expect the UFC marketing machine to mine much from here.
The What
Max’s future at featherweight feels tenuous. Physically, he’s nearly outgrown the division and after this fight, there aren’t many significant challenges on the horizon. If Volkanovski wins, the division is blown wide open. Outside of a sheer rankings perspective, a loss for Holloway here is devastating and likely signals the end of his prime. Conversely, a win here might firmly knock Jose Aldo off the pedestal and plant Holloway as the greatest featherweight of all time (and, potentially the greatest fighter of all time). There’s a lot on the line.
The How – Max Holloway
Jose Aldo’s featherweight reign was characterized by a commitment to defense, but his successor’s gift is offensive. Watching Max Holloway in open space is absolutely beautiful, as he glides in and out of range, constantly taking slight angles on his opponents before smacking them with punches they don’t see coming. Resembling Oleksandr Usyk with his command of rhythm, angles, and layered exchanges, fighting Max Holloways is as taxing physically as it is mentally. His performance against Brian Ortega was nothing short of masterful.
Holloway’s ability to weave angles and rhythm together was on full display against Ortega. First, watch his lead hand jab and notice the timing before the right hand. 1-1-1, all full beats apart. Max’s right hand that lands after the third jab is a half-beat, with the rhythm of the full combination playing out 1-1-12. Next, watch Max’s feet. With every jab, Max is taking a slight angle towards the inside line of his opponent with his lead foot, as his rear foot is constantly reangling behind him. Ortega’s rear foot is planted, which means that he’s relying entirely on trunk rotation to evade the punches. Max’s jab tracks Ortega’s head, and Max’s concluding right hand catches Ortega attempting to lean off his rear hip with his right leg still planted, meaning his stance collapses.
When Ortega pressures Holloway in combination, Max retreats at a 45° angle. As Ortega moves forward linearly, Holloway is able to take a subtle angle on his opponent and counter him on the way in.
The straw that stirs the drink is Max’s output. He isn’t a naturally heavy-handed fighter, but he’s proven to be a murderous finisher over five rounds, and this is attributed to his freakish cardio and volume advantages. Between the Ortega fight and the Poirier fight, Holloway threw nearly 500 strikes a piece. There’s no one in MMA who could transition to boxing better than Max Holloway.
Holloway’s jab is the needling strike that opens up his entries. He flashes the jab in Aldo’s face before pumping a feint and throwing the jab a half-beat behind it as Aldo tries to inside slip off the feint.
To diffuse Holloway’s use of angles, the opponent must be able to mirror Max’s movement. Ortega’s footwork is still rudimentary, meaning that he needed to plant his feet before he could fire. As a result, Max was able to glide around him without Ortega seemingly even realizing it. Jose Aldo did a much better job at mirroring, pivoting, and preventing Holloway from taking offensive angles.
Aldo pivots off his lead leg as Max steps in. Max immediately recognizes the pivot and ends up standing southpaw off of Aldo’s pivot. He immediately starts jabbing with his right lead hand, as Aldo’s pivot didn’t limit the exchange the way he was hoping.
As a pure sniper, Holloway is strong. His lead left hook is his most polished counterpunch, which shouldn’t come as a surprise as it is the king of counters in boxing. Whether used as a check hook to dissuade pressure or closing the door to conclude exchanges, Max’s left hook might be his most important weapon behind his jab.
Edgar circles to his right, and Max subtly mirrors his opponent. Just as Edgar sets his feet to throw, Max lands a tight left hook before angling out to avoid Edgar’s right hand counter.
As Poirier lunges in over his feet with an orthodox right hand, Holloway sneaks his left hook over the top of Poirier’s right and topples him before swarming him along the fence.
The uppercut he showed off against Edgar was a nice wrinkle. Against a shorter opponent, Max dissuaded level-changes and found the chin of his opponent with ease. This will likely play well against Volkanovski, whose defense is primarily the double-forearm guard. Slipping a long uppercut between his guard will be an excellent way to counteract the stocky, clinch fighter.
Holloway’s ancillary skills round out his game in such a way that makes him incredibly difficult to bully physically or consistently outwrestle. Up-and-coming fighters need to study Max’s ability to frame, fight grips, and turn his opponents in the clinch. Even fighters at the highest level struggle with these fundamentals (as we saw with Poirier against Khabib), but Holloway understands the virtue behind insulating his striking with defensive grappling.
Notice how when Max throws combinations and Poirier tries to smother his punches into the clinch, Max immediately frames with his left arm across Poirier’s body before grabbing his bicep. With the other hand, he has a collar tie on Poirier and slams his body with a knee.
Max feints a left hook, and Edgar attempts a knee-tap. Max pivots off his lead leg and shifts into southpaw, while digging for an underhook with his right arm. Edgar spins with Max, unable to get a hold of his opponent. Max lands a right hook from southpaw on the break.
Once again, Edgar times his level-change off of Holloway’s lead hand feint. As Edgar begins driving, Max grabs a hold of the whizzer with his left arm and looks for the underhook with his right arm. Along the fence, Max immediately utilizes the underhook to displace Edgar’s grip before crossfacing Edgar, thus denying the takedown.
However, there are elements of Holloway’s game that have petered out, if not entirely regressed. In particular, Max is easier than he should be to push back in a straight line, given the quality of his offensive footwork. Combination punching can force Max backward, and he lacks the tight pivots of Jose Aldo to completely redirect and position himself when he’s on the retreat.
Max’s offensive depth is genuinely stunning, but his defensive depth is still somewhat limited. I’ve never subscribed to the notion of Holloway having bad defense, but his footwork does most of the heavy lifting. His head movement is generally limited to shorter slips and rolls, as opposed to exaggerated weaves under strikes, and he’s not particularly layered defensively in extended exchanges. Too much of his defense in open space is reliant on footspeed for my liking. As friend of The Fight Site, Phil Mackenzie, has brought up before, there is a certain point in Max’s defensive layers where he bails on counterpunching, and purely commits to retreating. These are the moments he can be cracked.
The Edgar fight was a bit of a strange one from Max. It looked as though (on the heels of the Poirier war) Holloway was trying to make a concerted effort to play more defensively. The problem is, his defense wasn’t necessarily deepened. Instead of limiting exchanges, Holloway just initiated less, which is incongruent with his strengths as a fighter. More proactive defense would be advised (such as weaving under the right hand and exiting out the side), as well as sharper pivots on the backfoot instead of simply retreats.
The How – Alexander Volkanovski
Alexander Volkanovski is a fighter worth more than the sum of his parts. I have described him as the most well rounded fighter at featherweight, and after his thoughtful approach to the stiff test against Jose Aldo, this assessment still feels apt. With a functional jab and right hand, a strong transitional clinch game, great athleticism and strength, Volkanovski is an extremely comfortable pressure fighter. He’s an excellent iteration of a generalist, who is (at worst) competent everywhere and (at best) quite potent when all the pieces of his game get rolling.
The core of his technical game on the feet is balanced between pressure and the jab. I’ve talked before about Volk’s jab, but I really do like it a lot. It’s not an especially active jab, but with an exhausting combination of pressure and feints, Volk is able to mask his darting ramrod of a jab until he’s securely in the pocket.
Volk squares his shoulders and folds over his lead hip. His weight is firmly planted on his lead leg, and he darts forward with the jab. This places more power behind the punch from the spring of the leg and shoulders.
On his opponents’ entries, Volk attacks the lead leg with either the inside or outside leg kick. This should be useful against Max, whose mobility generally comes at the cost of being in position to check kicks. As a general striker, Volkanovski lets a few tools do the heavy lifting, but it is worth noting his lack of depth in specific areas. He isn’t terribly difficult to push backward with strikes, and defensively, he tends to fall apart in layers. Short, snippy combinations in punching range, sliding back just far enough to keep the pressure on but to avoid extended exchanges. Pinning the opponent between the pocket and the clinch. Takedowns are a bonus.
In the best moment of the fight for him, Mendes forced Volkanovski all the way back to the fence and drew him into a swangin’ exchange. Volkanovski leads with an uppercut and gets hit with a right. Then, he tries hooking with Mendes and gets dropped. Defense is not the focal point of Volkanovski’s game.
This does highlight one of the Australian’s key weaknesses. When one area of his game is denied, Volkanovski’s potency in general is undercut. At least in the early going, Chad Mendes was able to frame Volkanovski off and force him into a protracted striking battle. Even Darren Elkins was able to hit Volk when he enforced the clinch behind his striking. Volkanovski’s offense generally is his defense.
Volk doesn’t tend to prefer clinching in open space. Instead of intercepting his opponent’s step-ins with a short clinch tie-up before attacking on the break like Leon Edwards, Volk wants to push his opponents all the way back to the fence before locking up with them. Once he’s pinned them along the cage, his clinch entries are sound and reliable.
Similar to heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko, Volkanovski loves the overhand-into-double underhooks. Notice that when Volk throws the overhand right, he takes a wide sidestep with his rear leg, weaving under the punch. If Elkins weren’t already knocked down, Volkanovski would have a double underhook in the clinch.
Volk attempts one of his preferred entries; jabbing into the crossface, while using the right arm for either the underhook or bicep control. Elkins scrappily sneaks in a few uppercuts as Volk pushes him into the fence.
In the early going, Mendes was able to deny Volkanovski the clinch. Here, Volk squares up his shoulders to disguise his entry and leads with a left hook while drawing his right hand around Mendes’ head to grab the collar tie. Mendes slips inside the left hook and clubs Volk with a pair of hooks.
If Volkanovski can open up the underhooks in the clinch, he likely has the clinch won. Oscillating between collar ties + underhooks for damage and trip takedowns means Volk is adept at doing two things at once inside. As a short, stocky fighter who enters the clinch on his own terms, he is able to establish postural control by jutting his head under the chin of his opponents. Combined with an underhook and a collar-tie, he can inflict some serious damage when his opponents are pinned along the fence.
I like how Volkanovski uses his lead hand as a lever into the clinch. Here, he throws a shifting uppercut to frame off, followed by a southpaw lead hook into a crossface and collar tie. Positionally, Volk is always sound in the clinch, with his feet and hips slightly behind his hips to force all of his weight on his opponent.
Volk is a nasty clinch fighter, because he attacks in both static positions and transitions. He will punch his way into the collar ties, and follow opponents with punches out of the tieups.
The size difference between Holloway and Volkanovski is comical, which makes me wonder how much success Volk will be able to have against Max inside. Dustin Poirier is larger than Volkanovski, but struggled immensely at handling Max in the clinch, who framed Poirier off with incredibly urgency, turned him onto the cage, and let some knees to the body go. Unlike Aldo who was primarily all-defense in tie-ups, Holloway is voraciously potent and difficult to get to inside. I don’t know if it’s a safe zone for Volk.
It’s difficult for me to explain why I’ve come off Volkanovski in his recent performances, but a lot of it has to do with the state of the opponents he’s beaten. Mendes looked like a shell of his former self, and still managed to badly hurt Volk and even knock him down at one point. It was largely a product of Volk’s physicality and Mendes’ diminished physicality that secured the win (see; Volkanovski hulking his way out of Mendes’ back control). That fight with Aldo was a serious bummer.
Mendes and Aldo have become burst fighters who are destined to lose any fight that they don’t finish. In their aged states, they have gotten worse at winning rounds. At this point, it doesn’t look like Aldo will be able to beat anyone he can’t finish. As such, Volkanovski’s process-driven output made a winning proposition difficult for Mendes and Aldo. Holloway is unquestionably the best and most dangerous round-winner Volkanovski will have faced in his career. This means Volk will have to make his clinch work and pressure count, while being able to keep pace with a higher output, more offensively deep fighter. We still don’t know if/how Volkanovski’s game flourishes over five rounds. He sustains pace quite well, but how does he do against someone who ramps up the volume in the final couple frames?
The What Else
My friend and fellow Fight Site analyst, Ryan Wagner, has brought up the directionality of this matchup as a potentially problematic area for Volkanovski. Against Aldo, most of Volk’s legitimate offense came along the fence in the third round. For all of his 2019 flaws, in open space, Aldo is still enormously difficult to pressure which made mounting significant offense in open space a serious challenge. When Volk isn’t pressuring and oscillating between the pocket and the clinch (along the fence), he usually isn’t winning. Holloway might still be the best lateral mover in the division (as Ortega can attest), and his ability to fight off the backfoot is quite potent over five rounds. Volk needs to be pressuring for the entire duration of the bout, whereas Max can traverse the ranges more comfortably. If Max just doesn’t concede range the way Mendes did, Volk has to strike in open space. I don’t know how much confidence I’m supposed to have in that kind of fight.
The Aldo fight was an odd one from Volkanovski, and one I’m not sure that Volk won particularly clearly. Alexander mostly pressured behind countless feints, tapped the legs with inside leg kicks, and didn’t commit to exchanges against the faster, more powerful counterpuncher. Aldo did indeed look horrific, but it also looked as though the Brazilian didn’t feel threatened by anything Volkanovski threw and thus was bullshitted out of the first two rounds. Volk didn’t really get much rolling until Round 3. I have a hard time seeing Holloway being feinted into complete inertia, nor will Volk be able to leverage his typical cardio advantage.
Similarly, I remain skeptical of Holloway’s performance against Frankie Edgar, despite a clean 50-45 shutout. It wasn’t a mess; against a better pure wrestler, Max stuffed nearly all of Edgar’s takedown attempts, countered with the jab off the backfoot, and diligently controlled the clinch. The problematic area for me was in Holloway’s cage craft and his diminished efforts to the body. Volkanovski’s defense to the head is improved, but his body is an incredibly inviting target, and yet no one has managed to commit to a lengthy assault to his torso. What I’m saying is this: If Holloway approaches this fight sloppily and doesn’t hammer Volkanovski’s body all night long, he deserves to lose.
Beyond this, there’s just a general question of where Max is. Maybe we’re being a bit too harsh on the Edgar performance. Or maybe he really is signaling a hit to his confidence and craft.
Prediction
Despite Holloway’s undeniable greatness, I have some concerns not so much about his physicality or “prime” but in his gameplanning and his ability to reconfigure his approach. I don’t generally like talking about “versions” of a fighter, but if Holloway shows up like he did against Edgar, he could lose this. Conversely, Volkanovski has been consistent and impressive on paper, but I still struggle to pin down how he stacks up here. He was nearly finished by a shot Chad Mendes and his performance against Aldo was incredibly smart from a strategic perspective, but unenlightening from a tactical one. If he’s denied the clinch or if he’s not moving forward, Max is simply better than him in open space. How much can Volk’s pressure dull Max’s volume? If Volk just tries to work in the clinch, does he get laced? How much work can Volk do if he’s significantly outsized inside against such a disciplined defensive clincher as Max? What does Max have left in the tank?
There is a lesson I’ve learned from MMA this year, and it has served quite a few of my upset picks at the highest level. From Zhang to Adesanya to Usman: When a streaking contender is fighting a champion in whom the cracks are beginning to show, pick the streaking contender.
Final Pick: Alexander Volkanovski by Unanimous Decision