One last shot to pair Max with the next great lightweight?

Funny how Burnaby’s always got that one buddy in Rio slinging coffee after the camp’s done

Yo mate, 12 fights no L? That dude's a LEFTY HAVOC on legs 🔥💪 Burnaby got no idea what they sitting on with that prodigy, nah nah nah, we need that stylish southpaw here like NOW before some snak oil "camp" in Brazil turns him into a stiff punchbag for Conor swans! Imagine Max on the other side of that cage, both lefties trading cleaners 😱 heart says it all, Max with the stylish left hander on his team? Stacked! 12-0 ya mum couldn’t pull that off on a skateboard! Burnaby let him loose on the lightweight race or we snatch him up and ship him straight to Hawaii for 3 months of waves and combos 🏄‍♂️

Blimey, but Burnaby’s throwing stones in their own garden if they think a Brazilian camp will turn a stylish southpaw into a stiff punchbag without Max Holloway lining up opposite him first. At 24 and 12-0 with no real age-related wear and tear showing—no decisions, no real wars—the kid’s got the cleanest ledger since the days of Cowboy Cerrone. But let’s not kid ourselves: lefties in this division who stay unblemished that long usually have a manager with a spine thicker than a Peacock’s neck. Burnaby’s got a rep for developing pound-for-pound prospects only to overcook them in the tropics while lining their pockets with promises. It’s not so much a Brazilian camp you’re worried about; it’s whether Burnaby’s owners will panic and cash out before the kid even hits 25. Left-handed clinics don’t grow on trees—there’s roughly one in every generation. Max, Pettis, Poirier, Chandler, that’s it at lightweight this decade. If the next genuine southpaw marvel walks in with a 12-fight paella platter like this, every top team from Dana’s place to Abu Dhabi will be ringing Burnaby’s doorbell within a fortnight. Problem is, Burnaby’s chairman has the negotiation style of a startled badger—once the suitcases open, the price inflates like a swamp balloon. So yes, in theory it’s doable: lightweight free agent window, small stash, 24 years old, clean record, lefty pedigree. Reality? Burnaby will either overvalue a “package” that amounts to three months of BJJ with a gaffer who’s never met a jab he liked, or they’ll ship him to some promotional morass where he fights a journeyman Samurai with a sub-.500 record in front of five thousand souls in a shopping mall. You want Max paired with the next great? Book the cage now, because the math says the window to sign him cleanly as a free agent—and before he’s lured into a long-term development deal that turns him stiff in the clinch—closes faster than a Conor front kick.

burnaby’s badger on the end of that phone line must’ve been in his cups when he signed those bjj gaffer blokes. 12 fights, no losses, no war stories—just clean, sharp southpaw drills and the kind of footwork that makes grown men look like they’re ice-skating backwards. remember khabib’s first dozen fights? same vibe, until the belts started piling up and the pressure did the talking. this kid’s got the polish to walk into any gym on the main tour and make it feel like home. and that brasilian camp nonsense? half of burnaby’s stable ends up there for three months and comes back sharper than when they left. eddie alvarez’s camp in belo with the grappling crew didn’t turn him into stiff punchbag material—he just learned how to squeeze. the difference between walking out the other side a sponge or a stiff isn’t the accent of the coach; it’s whether the fighter’s got his own radar tuned to what’s real. plus, we’re forgetting the rule of great southpaws: they come in threes. Chandler danced with gaethje, max traded with poirier, and then there’s this one—hidden gem in canada with a jab he can hide behind and a counter that leaves your jaw parked in next week. get him on a short leash, max sticks the landing, and suddenly the whole division’s got a new north star. burnaby’s owners might scare like badgers, but that kid’s value is written on the wall in neon. if dana and company come knocking with a reasonable buyout before he’s even sniffed a title shot, the call better be made on the spot. or we’ll be watching him debut in some shopping-mall main event against a former world cruiserweight in a cage so small the ref could tap him with a newspaper.

Smelled like maple syrup and stale energy drinks in here after half these takes got served like buffet leftovers. But okay, real talk: that southpaw’s got a coach up in Burnaby who ran corners for Rory MacDonald back in his St. Pierre days—yeah, the actual Georges St. Pierre style clinic before every gym pretended they invented footwork. So unless Brazil turns him into a coconut palm that folds at the slightest breeze, he’ll walk out of that camp sharper than a tickle fight between Nate and Conor. 🤡

Ever tried to explain to someone why a lefty in 155 feels like stumbling on a unicorn with gloves on? I had this exact conversation with my uncle at a Leafs game last winter—guy’s a Habs fan, so he started by arguing goalies don’t matter, but we both ended up agreeing: a southpaw with rhythm and a jab you can use to wallpaper a studio apartment is basically the closest thing combat sports gets to a cheat code. Thing is, Burnaby’s history of sending kids to Brazil reads like an overpriced dating profile—full of promises, light on delivery. So yeah, let’s grab this kid before Dana’s team turns the negotiation into a hostage situation where the ransom’s his prime years, but only on condition that we don’t let Burnaby’s owner near a spreadsheet after 7 PM.

remember the hype around that aussie kid who was supposed to switch allegiances last year? 14-0, left hand like a metronome—sound familiar? Burnaby promised the moon and the stars, next thing you know he’s in some snapchat-level regional circuit bashing a six-foot-four starter in front of twelve old ladies knitting between rounds. or take the kid from down under two cycles back—same song, different verse. three words on every fighter’s feed: “green light closed.” yeah, the southpaw hype train’s got a long history of boarding passengers only to pull into a parking lot with the engine still running. time will tell.