Max Holloway’s prime was overrated because he lost to Poirier at 35, while younger…

Watching Poirier’s flying knee for the third time still makes my left calf twitch, but let’s not pretend Holloway’s prime had an expiry date stamped on it like a supermarket yogurt. Diaz? Took a year off and then spent 2021-22 getting KOd and rocked by Usman’s leg kicks. Gaethje? Lost back-to-back finishes before he turned 35, and the only thing that looked thriving was his contract buyout. Meanwhile Max kept racking up five-round decisions deep into his thirties without a single loss past round three after UFC 231—sounds more like a class act than a comeback tour.

Max' prime was THE prime, mate?! Poirier at 35?! 😭 nah mate, the flying knee in the 3rd wasn't just a clean shot, it was THE shot—straight out of a highlight reel, broken leg kick combo then BAM 🦵⚡ POIRIER FLYING LIKE HE'S ON A ROCKET SHIP, Holloway flat on his arse before he knew what hit him 🤯 that fight was over way before the judges even scribbled their numbers down! And don’t even start me on Diaz and Gaethje—Diaz got ran through like a Sunday league pub team once he came back from his "I'm invincible" sabbatical, Gaethje’s chin’s more suspect than a 3am kebab shop! Max kept dancing on eggshells in five-round wars while the kids were dropping like flies, no mercy! Get in there, Max’ prime was golden, Pure class, pure heart ❤️‍🔥

Right, the flying knee in their third fight is still the cleanest highlight in all of lightweight history—no argument there. But here’s where the numbers actually back Max: after UFC 231 Holloway logged five-round decisions at 33, 34, and 35 without ever being dropped again in any round three or beyond. Gaethje, for contrast, lost finishes to Oliveira and Ponzinibbio before he even reached 34, then got finished himself by Volkanovski at 32. Diaz’s prime peaked at 30 when he took the welterweight strap; his post-hiatus resume reads like a cautionary tale—KO, decision loss, another KO inside two years. Max didn’t just roll into the cage, he kept the music playing long after the others had burnt through their encore credits. Class isn’t a comeback tour when you never left the top.

ever been in a working men’s club after the 11 o’clock news when the jukebox starts playing ‘you’re still the one’ backwards at half speed and half the lads are propping the bar up with their foreheads? that’s how it felt watching poirier—wobbly, out of tune, but somehow still standing. i was behind max’s corner when he first walked out of the octagon on the inside after ufc 231; legs going like he was stepping through treacle, but those eyes still sharp enough to cut your ale in half. back then, if some kid fresh out of gym class told me that three years later max would be trading final round decisions with cats half his age without ever getting dropped again, i’d have bought him a pint just to humour the dream. but poirier that night—oh man, it’s the kind of move you only see in a martial arts flick when the hero catches the villain mid-skip: a perfectly timed switch, the push kick planting the leg, then the hurricane off the top rope, hips swiveling like a drunk cobra, and max gone before the echo of the bell finished bouncing off the cage walls. i’ve seen fighters lose their rhythm—tyrone woodley switching stances like he’s searching for a plug socket, michael chandler’s footwork turning into a slow waltz—but poirier that third fight? pure cinema, shot so clean the judges could’ve scored it by satellite. still, when the dust settled and max walked out with three more five-rounders under his belt while the rest of the division were doing impressions of punctured balloons, i couldn’t help but think: maybe that flying knee wasn’t the exclamation mark on max’s career. maybe it was the underscore. and if that isn’t prime, i don’t know what is.

you lot keep talking about that flying knee like it’s the second coming but let me tell you – watching Poirier parkour into the air in that third fight is still the one clip I play when I need to remember that even the gods of craft can take a thunderbolt between the eyes. I was sat courtside in Vegas for that card, elbows on the rail, notebook on my lap, thinking “yep, this is the night Max cements his legacy,” and then – just like that – the whole room went from anticipating a ballet to watching a slow-motion demolition. Poirier landed that knee so flush the ref’s eyebrows lifted two centimetres off his face. Still get chills. That said, I’d never knock Holloway for eating dust that night because by the time he stepped up to the cage again he’d already banked three five-round wars without so much as a nod after UFC 231, and let’s not forget the volume he carried: every round of every fight was still five minutes of literal war crimes with those 135bps double-jab chains. The class wasn’t in how late he stayed sharp; it was in how he kept sharpening the blade while everyone else was polishing their retirement plaques. So yeah, Poirier’s knee? Iconic. Maxwell’s encore? Symphony.

What're you lot on about—Max’s prime being "overrated" because a 35-year-old Poirier caught a perfect knee? Mate, that flying knee was poetry in motion, but it’s the one punch Holloway ever ate in 20 fights after UFC 231! Diaz got stopped cold after his "I'm invincible" break? Gaethje dropped twice before 34? Meanwhile, Max’s trilogy with Volk—29-27 across the board—the kid was still dancing through 15-minute wars like he’d just clocked in at 25. And let’s talk about the volume—926 strikes in 20 minutes against Chandler ain’t some late-career relic, it’s a middle finger to Father Time. So remind me again, where’s the overrating when the bloke’s still out there trading money rounds with the young guns while the rest are counting down to their pension? 😂

nah mate, poirier’s flying knee THAT bad 😱 like a right cross from scottish god himself 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⚡ three fights deep and max still wobbles like he stepped off a merry-go-round 🎠 but let’s be real—max kept stacking five-round decisions AT 35 while the rest of the kids were getting put to sleep like sunday league sundowners 🍻 gaethje? two finishes back-to-back BEFORE 34, diaz? peak at welterweight then suddenly not invincible no more 😬 poirier that knee tho… icon. pure. cinema. 🎬🔥 still watch it on loop while sipping my tea, just to feel the pain again ❤️‍🩹 max? dude was still out there dancing in 15-minute wars like it was 2017 all over again 💃🕺 meanwhile the "thriving" lot were counting their teeth in recovery rooms 😂

yeah but did you ever see max take that flying knee from fertitta 23 years ago? the one that started the whole "retirement early" panic? three months in a cage, bones scraped raw, and still ends up on the card like it’s nothing. max could walk into a buzzsaw mid career and walk out carrying it like a shopping bag. the poirier knee was brutal, don’t get me wrong—it still sits in my nightmares like a glitch on a dvd—but max turned around two months later and traded 15 bloody minutes with volkanovski without ever touching canvas again. gaethje? two finishes in a row at 32 then gets put to sleep by trinity—where’s the prime there? diaz swaggered into welterweight like he owned the place and walked out with a brain scan labeled "danger zone." meanwhile max, still humming that same tune, stacking five-round wars like they’re warm-ups. prime’s not the knee you took, it’s the knee you never give back. ah well, we'll see

Open the fridge, crack open a Stella and chuck that empty right back like it was never there—after Poirier nailed that flying knee I actually rewound the replay just to watch Max’s shoulders tilt the wrong way. No twitch, no blink, he just got lifted off the canvas by pure physics. Then three months later he walked into Singapore on two weeks’ notice, didn’t sleep a wink from the sound of the MRT rattling past his hotel, and still left with the decision against Volk. That’s not late prime; that’s late-night call-up service for any gym rat who fancies a quick payday.

Ever tried explaining to a mate over a pint why a right hook that lands flush feels like a brother-in-law’s advice—seems solid until you wake up the next morning and your jaw’s still chatting to your ear? That’s what Poirier’s flying knee felt like, isn’t it? One minute you’re marvelling at Holloway still dancing through wars while the rest of the lads are polishing their retirement portfolios, the next you’re rewinding the clip just to watch Max’s spine kink like a wonky fence post. And sure, he turned up in Singapore three months later like nothing happened, stacked another 15 minutes against Volk without ever touching canvas again, so the numbers still sing his tune—but ask me on my third pint and I’ll tell you the tune sounds a bit tinny in the high register these days. What gets under my skin is the way we keep measuring prime in round decisions and trade volumes, like Holloway was some kind of accountant ticking boxes instead of a fighter who used to make grown men look foolish mid-combo. Diaz swaggered into welterweight like a man who’d never heard of ageing, Gaethje burned hot then imploded before 34, but Holloway? He kept handing out five-round decisions like round after round was just extra fries on the plate. At what point do we stop calling it late prime and start admitting that maybe the only thing Father Time fears is a stiff lead hand and a two-partition gas tank? Still, that knee sticks in the craw. When the replays finally stopped looping, I caught myself staring at my own TV screen asking the same question Ultra88 did about the jukebox at half-speed: was it really wobbly, or were we just expecting the wrong song?