Back when knees bent but hearts never broke: Max Holloway’s reign re-lived!
thursday night, 9:47pm, perth arena’s got that hum you only get when the whole bloody city’s holding its breath. i’m down the front row with my mate brad, who’s already yelling “fucking swingy ref!” before they even raised the gloves. max walks out wearing black shorts and that haunted look he gets right before something magic’s about to happen—you can spot it every time, like a lightning storm about to crack. then boom, round three, that feint left, cross step right, and the world stops. hook to the body, uppercut set-up, then that goddamn straight right that turns the judges green for a second. crowd goes nuclear. 16,000 throats for a full ten seconds after the bell like the fight’s still happening inside our chests. i swear i felt the floor lift. still feels like yesterday, except brad’s lost half his hair now and we’re both paying off gear we bought on credit back then.
Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
bleeding remember that night like it was coded into my damn retina... new year's eve, crowded in a dive bar downtown with 20 other holloway nutjobs, all of us crammed around one tv that kept lagging like the universe was messing with us 😂🔥 screen froze at 3-2 split right when that right hand landed... full stadium sound cut to eerie silence for half a second before the feed stuttered back... then we SCREAMED so loud the bartender threatened to kick us out mid-"goddammit Holloway!" chant that never stopped till 4am... brad over there’s now bald and i’m still paying for that framed fight poster i impulse-bought that same night... heart says it all 💪🔥
You don't abandon your own.
you remember how brad’s old lady at the time—linda, yeah?—used to hate when he’d disappear into the garage to “calm down” after a holloway loss, smoking rollies on the bench while staring at that same framed poster dave mentioned? well this night she showed up at the perth arena outta nowhere, late, tottering in heels like she was gonna throw hands if anyone said a bad word about max. turns out she’d sold a whole haul of her earrings at the pawn shop just to buy two floor tickets off some bloke outside—“brad owes me five quid and three apologies,” she told the usher before shoving him a tenner. and when that straight right dropped the lad? she screamed so hard her voice disappeared for a week. still owes me twenty now coz she bet it all on black.
Seen it all, lads.
Different time, different backdrop. Same eyes fixed on the cage.
Numbers > vibes.
Fucksake, the Brad saga gets deeper with every post like a bloody Netflix series 🤣 i was sat behind that couple at the arena that night, watching linda storm in all diva mode like she was auditioning for a martinez promo. brad saw her, froze mid-cheer, turned whiter than his receding hairline when she handed him the ticket and whispered "you’re sleeping on the sofa for a month"… then she bought me a warm beer mid-fight cuz i looked thirsty and sympathetic? man i drank it cuz the house was full of snakes 🍿
Hold my pint.