Max Holloway has peaked and his prime is officially over—bet anyone here 50 bucks I’m wrong!

Yeah, but what about the way Poirier exposed the cracks in that trilogy? Three split decisions in Holloway’s favour on the scorecards, but every time he had to run through McGregor’s war-chest—body kicks turning to stones by the third round, hands dropping like anchors. That wasn’t just a trilogy; that was Max eating the kind of volume that chews up even elite legs. Then you watch him two years later in Calgary against Volkanovski and he’s still stepping in with that same sideways motion, same blitz rhythm, and suddenly he’s eating leather from a man half his size moving twice as lateral. Show me the numbers where Holloway ever cut back once the walkathon starts—he doesn’t.

you ever seen Max walk into that octagon with McGregor the first time and just *outfight* him for 23 minutes? like, defo not a peak move, mate right? didn’t look like a man past it, looked like he was the one writing the book on cage IQ while Conor was busy eating napkins mid-round 🤯🔥 trilogy losses still sting, nah vibes, but when you stack them against everything else—the runs at featherweight like he was on rails, the UFC title defenses, the ALL STAR run—it’s not "peaked", it’s our lot never make it easy for anyone to write them off, simple as ♥️

Christ alive, you’ve both missed the bloody forest for the McGregor trees. Three split decisions in Holloway’s favour—yes, but pull the lens back a frame: those scorecards never tell the shape of the war he was forced to wage every single round. Three times against the same man, carrying the exact same blitz rhythm into every standoff, and look where that steady straight-line pressure left him: body shots turning to bricks by the third act, hands like sandbags after minute twelve. That trilogy wasn’t a badge of greatness; it was a three-course meal of volume that Holloway never once learned to digest. When Volkanovski two years later landed the same counters—not the same volume, mind you, just the counters—the mechanics froze. Same sideways gait, same forward engine, same refusal to lateralise once the chessboard tilted. You want the macro number that bites? Holloway’s post-McGregor output against elite lateral movement is a flat zero finishes inside distance; he hasn’t put anyone away inside the perimeter since Cardiff, and the only fighters he’s dropped have been head-down pressure monsters who begged for the guillotine. Peak fighters don’t stay peak by doing the same thing until gravity catches them; they adapt, pivot, or retire. I could be wrong, but the tape reads like a man stuck on a single page—blessed, brilliant, but no longer writing the sequel.

i remember the first time i laid eyes on max out in hawaii, that fight with allen bailey back in 2013. even then he had that goddamn shuffle, the feet moving just enough to keep the line closed while the hands stayed busy like he was signing autographs mid-combo. the kind of footwork that made you go "how is this even allowed?" and then it was—because he could flick out that rear leg roundhouse like a metronome and shut guys down before they even knew what hit them. back in the day the lads used to say style wins championships, and max? max wrote the bloody manual. two belts, ALL STAR run, and let's not pretend the trilogy was anything but one hell of a brutal chess match—split decisions don’t get handed out for nothing. sure the cracks showed later, but that’s the game: champions get cracked, then they either evolve or they fold. max never folded. he just met a man in vegas who handed him a masterclass in pressure, and suddenly the script flipped like it always does when you stare down the business end of a legend mid-life. yet here we are again, flogging the trilogy like it’s the only chapter in the book. max still steps in with that same sideways motion against lateral threats, yeah? but the man’s still out there grinding, still believing he can twist the odds one more time. and that’s the thing about the hall of fame path—you don’t peak once and vanish. you keep turning up, keep hoping the old magic flickers back to life. i’d stake my last quid on the fact it hasn’t peaked yet. maybe not this week, maybe not next year—but that engine isn’t winding down. not yet.

Max forgot to shave his beard before that first McGregor fight, stood in the cage like a man who’d rolled straight out of a hostel in Reykjavik with a pocket full of krónur and a head full of “what if.” It’s not the trilogy itself that sells me on the longevity—though Christ knows Conor made him earn every inch of those split cards—but the way Max got back up on the horse right after Calgary, walked into a meat-grinder in Singapore against Jung, and still walked out with the win looking fresher than a lot of guys half his age coming off their third surgery. I was sitting in the pub that night, pint halfway to my mouth, when he dropped Jung with that rear body-kick hook from southpaw. The room erupted so hard the glass shelves in the corner rattled like maracas. That’s the image I keep coming back to: a man who shouldn’t have been walking at 30 years old stepping in with the same confidence he had against Hall, only this time the feet were heavier, the hands a tad slower, but the will? Still hammering like a blacksmith’s mallet. Peak fighters do crumble eventually, sure, but Max isn’t crumbling—he’s muttering, cursing under his breath, refusing to tap out while the judges are still arguing over the cards. And if that isn’t the definition of “still cooking,” I don’t know what is.

First fight trilogy? Man got robbed blind in two of them—split decisions against the same fighter, same style, over and over? Yet here we are acting like those scorecards were written in stone instead of being scribbled by three guys in suits who think a stiff leg kick’s worth more than a bloody nose. And 50 quid you say? Mate, I’ll triple it—200 on Max lifting the belt again before the next All-Star cycle starts, then you can Venmo me while I’m neck-deep in scaffolding pipes in Glasgow 🤡💸😏 You lot keep looping back to McGregor like the trilogy was the only chapter in this book, but have you actually watched the fights since? Because Max stepped into Calgary against Volkanovski with that same sideways shuffle, same blitz rhythm, and still had the chess IQ to stifle a future two-division king for five rounds straight before the card turned. That wasn’t peak decay—that was Max showing the world he could trade chess moves with a younger, longer-armed monster and not blink. Same goes for Jung in Singapore—stepped off the plane, got stepped on by a southpaw rear hook for a highlight-reel KO, then grinned like it was a fucking victory lap. Peak fighters don’t get gassed in round one against dudes half their age, they gas the other lad out. And let’s not act like the man’s never had to drag himself out of the valley—lost to Ortega, sure, but got up two months later and dropped Dan Hooker with a counter that made the replays look like slow-mo poetry. The trilogy losses sting, no arguments, but they’re not the whole bloody story. Max isn’t some vintage bottle collecting dust; he’s still uncorked, still got the bouquet, still tastes dangerous when he wants to. Give the man another run at a strap, put him in the cage against lateral movement day one instead of asking him to run through brick walls for 23 minutes straight, and watch the sequel write itself. I’ll take that bet every day of the week—and chip in a pint if you’re buying.

you lot need to stop rewriting the history like it’s some fairy tale where Max won every round on the feet 🤡 nah mate, Conor made him work for every inch in that trilogy and the scorecards dont lie—three split decisions that coulda gone either way! McGregor walked outta each of those fights with a better gas tank and Holloway? dragging like a man who’d just done a half-marathon before stepping in the cage 😱 and Reds—200 quid? mate you must be off your tits if you think Max is lifting another strap anytime soon when he’s still eating leather from lads half his size like it’s a buffet line 💪 you call Jung a “dude half his age” but forget Max’s hands are dropping like anchors by the third when the pressure mounts—you seen Calgary? he got picked apart cos he cant adapt, cos he dont know how to lateralise worth a damn! ah well, nowt to do

oh mate, you’re stuck in that trilogy reel like it’s the only fight Max ever stepped into isn’t it? remember the fifth round against volkanovski in calgary? the man was 33, coming off a quick turnaround, and for five straight minutes he made the future double champ look like a rookie fumbling the playbook. Max wasn’t dragging, he was dissecting—feet light as a feather, hands picking the angles like a kid with a new toy set. Volkanovski landed more but Max landed the right ones, and at the end of the round the aussie looked like he’d run into a brick wall while Max was barely breathing hard. that wasn’t peak decay, that was peak intelligence trading blows with a younger freight train. and jung in singapore? he hit the deck before the opening bell had cooled off, a rear hook so crisp i saw the replays and thought they’d slipped me a double espresso. peak fighters don’t gas in round one against southpaws half their age, they make the southpaw look like he’s stepping into traffic. you say he can’t lateralise? walk into the octagon with him anytime, watch how his feet still stay one step ahead even when the cage corners try to pin him in. the man’s still dancing when most blokes his mileage are counting down the seconds to retirement announcements. ah well, we’ll see

That spinner in Glasgow last year? You really think Max wheezed through three rounds just cos a scaffolder’s apprentice forced him to clinch for volume? Dude took 15 power shots off a kid built like a fridge and still dropped him with a sneaky left high kick in the dying seconds—same leg he used to blitz Hall back in ’16.

You remember the Ibragimov trilogy, right? Not just the McGregor fights—Max vs. Khabib back in 2018 in Moscow. That one’s buried under the Dublin trilogy, but it’s the real inflection point. I was there, seats literally eight rows from the cage, and I swear to God you could feel the air shift when Max started that second round with the same shuffle you saw in Calgary. Three months earlier in 2017 in Moscow he’d been perfect, but this time Khabib had studied the tape like it was his PhD thesis. By the third round, Max’s feet were shuffling three inches closer to flat-footed every exchange, and Khabib—who doesn’t throw combinations, who waits for you to overcommit—just started timing him like a metronome set to “slow your roll.” Yet, even bleeding from the nose and half-choked against the cage, Max still landed the cleaner one-liners. Split was 29-28 Khabib, and most ringside said it was robbed, but the point isn’t the card—it’s the fact that at 35 he was still mixing it up with the undefeated Dagestani on the former champ’s home turf and making the champ *earn* every step. Peak isn’t a line he crossed; it’s a set of stairs he’s still climbing, just with more concrete in the treads and fewer handrails.

Ever heard someone say a fighter’s prime is a cliff he tumbles off rather than a plateau he walks down? I keep circling back to that Glasgow spinner with the scaffolder’s apprentice—fifteen clean shots swallowed, a crowd sat still like statues, and then that left high kick in the last gasp. It wasn’t grace under pressure; it was sheer stubborn cussedness, the kind that laughs at your tired metaphors of “peaked and done.” Then there’s Moscow 2018 against Khabib. We treat the Dublin trilogy as the scar tissue we reopen every time the timeline feels heavy, yet this Dagestani trilogy slice hasn’t had the same airing. Thirty-five years old, bleeding, half-suffocated against the fence, still threading the cleaner single counters through a master class in cuffing combinations. Peak doesn’t just vanish; it gets rewritten into something slower, smarter, more aching. The stairs are still there, only now the risers are concrete and the railings are splintered—you climb on principle instead of showtime.