Arman Tsarukyan believes Max Holloway’s best days are long gone.
Earlier this month, Holloway defended his BMF title against Charles Oliveira in the main event of UFC 326. Despite winning their first fight over a decade ago, things went much differently for “Blessed” this time around, as Oliveira dominated him for 25 minutes, scoring takedowns almost at will and completely neutralizing Holloway.
Now, there are rumors that the UFC wants to book a rematch between Holloway and Conor McGregor for McGregor’s long-awaited return to the sport, hopefully this summer, and if that happens, Tsarukyan has a lot of confidence in McGregor.
“That’s a good fight, but I think it’s stylistically a good fight for Conor,” Tsarukyan told Ariel Helwani.
“… Max is done already. He’s just going to make money and then retire. He’s not that Max anymore. He was so bad. Last fight he looked so bad, it’s crazy. I was surprised. How you cannot wrestle? Zero wrestling. You’ve been in this sport for 20 years and you cannot even defend a takedown from Charles Olivera. Charles Olivera has no takedowns. He’s good at jiu-jitsu, but wrestling? I’ve never seen him wrestle very well. But he took him down like — it was like a masterclass in wrestling from Charles. I thought he went to Dagestan for 2-3 years and then come back.”
While Holloway may not be at his peak anymore, McGregor is far removed from his. The former two-division champion has not competed in nearly five years, and has not won a fight in over six.
Holloway, meanwhile, only recently moved up to 155 pounds, after losing his featherweight title bid against Ilia Topuria at UFC 308. And though he’s only 34 years old, Holloway has been fighting professionally for over 15 years, and Tsarukyan believes he’s soon to leave the sport, along with a whole class of fighters still dominating the top of the lightweight rankings.
“He has 3-4 fights left, and then he’s going to retire,” Tsarukyan said. “Our division is going to change soon. The king is going to be me, and we’re going to have big new names coming up.”
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SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE
I mean, this is impressive.
I’m fairly certain this is illegal.
I will happily bet Arman just about anything he wants if he wants to side with Conor in a hypothetical Max vs. Conor 2. Max ain’t his best anymore, but we’re nearly a decade removed from Conor’s best. I’d wager a limb on Max.
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