UFC 308 Preview
The UFC will be invading the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Saturday, October 26 for UFC 308. The main event will be for the featherweight title as champion Ilia Topuria will battle former champion Max Holloway.
Topuria will be making his first defense of the title as he won the belt in his last fight with a second round KO of Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298 in February. The champion is 15-0 overall and is has finished five of his seven fights in the UFC.
Topuria has fought in the lightweight division in the UFC so the rumor mill has been reporting that with a win on Saturday he may move up to 155 pounds to fight for the title. The champion responded.
“Before, I used to make more predictions about that — ‘I want to fight this one or that,’” Topuria said. “But at the end of the day, I want to do my job, which is to show up and fight and we’ll see what the UFC wants me to do.
“If they call me and they want me to move up to the lightweight division, I will be OK with that moving up and be the first one to submit Islam. If they want me to keep on defending that belt in the featherweight division, I will be OK with that, too. Let’s leave that decision to the UFC.”
While Topuria has been seen making predictions about how he will finish Holloway, he does respect the former champion. “I have all the respect for him,” Topuria said about Holloway. “He’s a great fighter. He has achieved many great things in the sport. You can’t take credit from him. I have learned many, many things from him.”
Topuria continued, “He called me a fan. Yeah, I followed his career, I’ve been a fan. How can you not be a fan of Max Holloway? He’s been a great example for me but now it’s my time to be that example for the next generation.”
Holloway has proven his ability as a striker and has more importantly proven his durability throughout his extensive career, having never been finished by strikes. Topuria believes he is better.
“In reality, he’s a good striker,” Topuria said. “It’s not only boxer because calling himself the best boxer in the UFC is kind of a shame, I think, because he’s not the best boxer in the UFC. But he’s a good striker.
“He has a lot of experience, he’s very patient inside the octagon. But everyone is good when they can develop a style in the octagon, and someone is not putting the pressure on him. On Saturday night, he’s going to feel something he never felt with any other opponents that he had in the past. The pressure he’s going to feel with me, it’s going to be completely different.”
Holloway is the current BMF champion, but Topuria believes even though that belt is not on the line in this fight, the value of the title will change after Saturday. ‘If you are at the point in your career where you are the BMF and you have that belt, why do you want to go down to fight for the featherweight title where you have a very low possibility to win?" Topuria said. "The only thing that makes you relevant is the BMF belt.
"You will lose a lot of value if someone comes and defeats you, even if you don't put the BMF belt at stake. Imagine what's going to happen after Oct. 26 when I knock him out. His belt won't have any value anymore. You can call yourself the BMF but I'm not sure.”
Holloway won the BMF belt in his last fight with a last second walk off knockout of former lightweight title challenger Justin Gaethje. The win was his third straight and second straight KO finish.
The Hawaiian became the unified featherweight champion in 2017 and would go on to defend the belt three times. He was a part of a hard-fought trilogy with Alexander Volkanovski but came up short in all three fights. Some pundits argue that Holloway won two of the three fights against Volkanovski and believe he is still the featherweight G.O.A.T. Holloway has moved on from those fights and knows he has more work to do, starting with a victory over Topuria to become a champion once again.
“I want the accolades; I want records,” Holloway said. “Everybody keeps (asking), ‘Who's the best featherweight champion of all time?’ It has to be Jose Aldo. He has all the stats… How do you go against stats? He has what, (seven) title defenses? I have three. I would love to get more.”
“If you want to be the G.O.A.T., you got to beat the G.O.A.T. and beat his records. You got to beat him (and) you got to beat the records. I'm coming for them.”
Topuria has not been shy in front of the cameras to bring up the flaws he sees in Holloway, but the former champion is ignoring the noise. “If that's what he needs for himself, then feel indestructible because I go into every fight 0-0,” Holloway said. “He was bringing up I lost seven times. Wow. Cool story, bro. It is what it is. You lose in this game, and in this sport, losing is very, very huge. I understand that, but some of the greatest guys in every other sport have a bunch of losses. I mean, what is LeBron James’ finals record? I think he lost more than he won. It is what it is.”
Holloway is certainly respected as one of the all-time greats, but he knows he has plenty of fight left in him. “That (first) run was amazing, but I’m not here to smell of flowers just yet,” he said. “We got a lot (left). You guys asked me about that last run. Ask me about the second run because it's going to be a fun one.”
What would becoming a two-time champion mean to Holloway? “It would mean a lot, especially with the way my career went,” Holloway said. “After that third fight with [Alexander] Volkanovski, a lot of people were saying I should change weight classes or all together, I should just retire because it’s never, ever going to happen.
“I guess a couple of years later we’re here and we’re days away and we get to find out who has the last laugh Oct. 26. I can’t wait for the opportunity.”
Holloway made his UFC debut in 2012 and is still only 32 years old. The key wins he has on his resume include Cub Swanosn, Charles Oliveria, Jeremy Stephens, Ricardo Lamas, Anthony Pettis, Jose Aldo (twice), Brian Ortega, Frankie Edgar, Calvin Kattar, Yair Rodriguez, Arnold Allen and Chan Sung Jung.
The co-main event of the evening will be a title eliminator fight in the middleweight division. Former champion #3 Robert Whittaker will battle undefeated contender #13 Khamzat Chimaev.
Whittaker has won two straight fights since losing to current champion Dricus du Plessis at UFC 290 in 2023. He most recently defeated Ikram Aliskerov by first round KO in June. Whittaker won the interim middleweight championship in 2017 and was later promoted to undisputed champion, but would never actually defend the belt. He fought a non-title bout in a rematch with Yoel Romero in what was suppose to be his first title defense, but Romero missed weight. Whittaker would then lose the title in his next fight to Israel Adesanya in 2019. Since then, Whittaker has gone 6-2 with key wins over Darren Till, Jared Cannonier, Kelvin Gastelum, Marvin Vettori and Paulo Costa.
Whittaker expects a war with Chimaev. “I am expecting him to come out hard and aggressive from the first second to the last, and I have prepared accordingly for that,” Whittaker said. “I’ve prepared for the hardest fight of my life, to start extremely hard, like sprinting for the first five to 10 minutes, but also drag it out to five minutes. I’m ready to sprint for 25 minutes if so. I’m coming in for war.”
He continued, “He’s had such success with his really hard starting fighting approach,” he added. “Regardless whether he gassed or not, he still won those fights pretty handily, and then it was due to the amount of dominance he had in those first rounds. I’m expecting the best version of himself. I’m expecting a guy that comes out hard and a guy that will last. I’m prepared for it. I’ve trained for it. I’m not going to train thinking that if I get out of the first round it’s game over. I’m preparing for the best version he can offer me, a super soldier. I’ve done that.”
Whittaker explained what type of approach he is going to take in the fight. “I look to go into this fight hunting, much like I planned to last fight,” Whittaker said. “I look to do again this fight. I’m the hunter in this fight. I’m the predator and I’m gonna be looking for him.”
The former champion believes he has made the necessary adjustments since his last loss. “Since the Dricus loss I had a bit of a wake up call,” Whittaker said. “I made some changes. Inside, outside the gym. We just sat down and we ripped in. We worked hard, we worked harder than ever, and you can see the results of that work show itself in every fight this year. Every fight I’ve gotten better. I’ve started to back myself more, the confidence I take in the victories that I’ve had. I’m coming into this fight, all cylinders firing.”
Whittaker could make a huge statement on Saturday by defeating a fighter that many pundits believe is the next middleweight champion. Chimaev’s rise was quick due to winning fights in dominant fashion in a short amount of time, but if there is any fighter who knows how to find the holes in a fighter’s game, it is Whittaker.
Chimaev is 7-0 in the UFC and most recently defeated former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman on short notice at UFC 294 a year ago. The Chechnyan fighters collected three wins in three months in 2020, but since then he has only fought four times, but the wins were impressive nonetheless.
Stylistically Whittaker is a good match for Chimaev given his ability to wrestle. But does Chimaev want to take the fight there? He commented, “Who did stop my takedowns?” Chimaev said. “Nobody. So, I don’t think this guy will be different. Kamaru Usman has been a great champ, and he took down everyone. But I took him down. I dominate him in the rounds easy. What’s going to be different with taekwondo or karate guy compared to Usman, who’s been a wrestler? He was a professional wrestler before.”
Chimaev and Whittaker agreed for the fight to be five rounds even though it is a non-title fight. Chimaev believes he has prepared for going all five rounds should the fight make it there. “I’ve been pushing from first second to last second in my sparring, but I don’t think it will be different in the cage, as well,” Chimaev said. “I didn’t say anything about my health before the Usman fight, so everyone thinks Khamzat went into the cage healthy, but it wasn’t that. I was sick in the morning before the fight. I didn’t find an excuse. I didn’t cry.”
The 30-year-old has suffered several injuries and health issues leading up to this fight. He discussed how he has mentally rebounded from all the setbacks. “Well, you could say that my depression has disappeared. There were a lot of problems before, I solved a lot of things. Thank God, everything is fine now. I’m human too, I also have my own problems. They needed to be solved,” Chimaev said.
He continued, “I got caught in depression and there was a lot going on. Well now, I’ve decided everything, thank God. I’ve moved to another team, everything is great. Doctors, pharmacologists, nutritionists, everyone. I’ve never had such a team.
“I even usually took vitamins incorrectly before. I was just training in the gym and fighting. Everyone thought I woke up and fought,” Chimaev said.
Chimaev has fought at both 185 and 170 pounds and when asked he commented on moving back down to 170 pounds. “If they give (me a 170lb title shot) why not? I’ve beat everyone (at welterweight) so just give me the title, and I’ll go down there,” he said.
Aside from Usman, Chimaev has key wins over Kevin Holland, Gilbert Burns and Li Jingliang. Whittaker represents the biggest victory of his career and a shot at the middleweight title. He may have to play the waiting game as former champion Sean Strickland has been slated for a rematch with Dricus du Plessis, but Chimaev will challenge the winner of that fight.
The rest of the main card:
Light Heavyweight - #1 Magomed Ankalaev vs. #5 Aleksandar Rakić
Featherweight - #12 Lerone Murphy vs. #15 Dan Ige
Middleweight - Sharabutdin Magomedov vs. Armen Petrosyan
ESPN + Prelims:
Light Heavyweight - Ibo Aslan vs. Raffael Cerqueira
Welterweight - #10 Geoff Neal vs. #15 Rafael dos Anjos
Lightweight - Mateusz Rębecki vs. Myktybek Orolbai
Middleweight - Abusupiyan Magomedov vs. Brunno Ferreira
Heavyweight - Kennedy Nzechukwu vs. Chris Barnett
Bantamweight - Farid Basharat vs. Victor Hugo
Middleweight - Ismail Naurdiev vs. Bruno Silva
Welterweight - Rinat Fakhretdinov vs. Carlos Leal
