“To Be the Best, You Have to Beat the Best, and the Best is ‘Blessed,’ Baby.” Why Max Holloway is the Greatest Volume Striker in UFC History

(via ESPN)

Throughout the 3- year history of the UFC, we have seen fighters who were not known for their one shot knockout power, but were known for their inhuman punch output. Fighters such as Nate Diaz, Tony Ferguson, Merab Dvalishvili, and Angela Hill all possessed styles where they had an iron chin, maintained constant forward pressure, forcing their opponent to fight off their back foot, and tiring them out using their insane endurance, and high striking output. 

Although these names are synonymous with this style, there is one man who has redefined the definition of high striking output, his name is Max ‘Blessed’ Holloway. Holloway has managed to completely rewrite the UFC record books during his career. Put simply, Holloway holds the all time best records in every category that defines a volume fighter, those being most significant strikes landed, most total strikes landed, and most significant strikes in a single bout. 

Holloway’s dominance over the most significant and total strikes landed all time is stuff of legend. Even though Holloway is only 32 years old, his tenure with the UFC started in 2012, when he was at the tender age of 20. This allowed him the ability to dominate so thoroughly in this category.  Total strikes landed simply measures the total number of strikes, no matter the impact. Holloway has landed a grand total of 3622 total strikes throughout his career, the next best total belongs to UFC Hall of Famer Georges St. Pierre, who despite having a longer career up to this point only notched 2591. This discrepancy is enormous, being over a thousand ahead of an all time great who has already called it a career. 

Significant strikes refers to strikes landed at a distance and power shots at close range, such as in the clinch. Holloway also holds the record in this statistic with a dizzying total of 3378. Second place belongs to the long time strawweight contender, Angela Hill with a total of 1896 in her career. The fact that Holloway was able to leap so far ahead of fighters who have five or more years of UFC experience than him is absolutely mind boggling. 

Holloway’s single fight significant strike record was earned through one of the most thorough beatdowns ever seen in the Octagon. On January 16, 2021, Holloway was set to main event for the first card of the year, which was being aired nationally on ABC. His opponent, Calvin Kattar, was a formidable striker in his own right, but was clearly outgunned in this fight in a way we had never seen. Holloway landed an insane 446 total significant strikes over the course of five brutal rounds, breaking the previous record of 290. Who was the record holder up until that point? Max Holloway in his performance against Brian Ortega that did not go the distance like his bout with Kattar. 

To say that Holloway is a great volume striker is a severe understatement. He is far and away the best volume striker that has ever been seen in the history of combat sports. In the words of Holloway himself, “To be the best, you have to beat the best, and the best is ‘Blessed,’ baby.”