Holloway brings home the hardware

If the UFC planned to use Monday’s homecoming for featherweight champion Max Holloway and Yancy Medeiros as a measuring stick on whether to hold an event here, Hawaii is looking pretty good.

Approximately 300 people welcomed the fighters at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in the early afternoon, including the entire University of Hawaii football team, and many more lined the streets of Waianae to warmly greet Holloway and Medeiros following Saturday’s impressive showing at UFC 212 in Rio de Janeiro.

Holloway unified the UFC’s 145-pound championship with a third-round TKO of Jose Aldo and Medeiros flattened Erick Silva with a second-round TKO to earn a huge win of his own.

After roughly 18 hours of flying, both were met by a boisterous crowd outside the baggage claim that gathered to show their appreciation for how well Holloway and Medeiros represented the islands in Brazil.

“It feels great,” said Holloway, who was covered in lei around his neck and a gold UFC title belt around his right shoulder. “Being from Waianae, a place where too many people don’t want to venture, all the drugs, all the crime, and me and my boy Yancy get to bring something good back just proves that, not only from Waianae, not only from Hawaii, anywhere, you can be anybody in this world. Just because your circumstances ain’t the ones that are right for certain people, it doesn’t make you. You got a dream, go after it and don’t let nobody tell you you can’t do it.”

The party continued into the night on the west side as the momentum for a UFC event in Hawaii continues to build.

Holloway said he would sit down with the UFC next month to figure out his next fight.

“I want to get paid. I want to get my money and we’re going to have that talk,” Holloway said. “Definitely UFC Hawaii better happen. Look at this.”

The crowd erupted when Holloway stepped out of a van that brought him outside the baggage claim. He was first greeted by his son, Rush, and then his mother, Missy Kapoi, who watched the fight at an uncle’s house in Waianae with a large gathering.

“Because I never ever saw him get beat up, it’s pretty cool,” Kapoi said. “I’m so proud of Max because he works so hard. He deserves this.

“We come from a place that always has fights, so we used to it. I’m not really that nervous, but this fight I had butterflies. First time. The night before I couldn’t sleep.”

Kapoi plans to be at Holloway’s next fight and hopes she won’t have to get on a plane to attend.

“The next one I will be there. Hopefully it will be in Hawaii,” she said. “We’re rooting for it. Please, we need everyone to call (UFC president) Dana (White) and let the UFC know we want it here.”

Since B.J. Penn’s reign as lightweight champion ended in 2010, the UFC hasn’t shown much interest in bringing an event to Hawaii until Holloway started piling up the wins.

Now, with the undisputed UFC featherweight champion residing on the west side of Oahu, the momentum for holding an event in Hawaii has grown to an all-time high.

“Max has catapulted it, and it’s here,” Medeiros said. “Everybody knows (the support from Hawaii) was there and it’s a sleeping giant. Now it’s awoken and Dana White, it’s proven, man. Bring it to Hawaii, because we got it.”