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LAS VEGAS >> Max Holloway finally found a UFC featherweight he couldn’t figure out.
Holloway’s six-year run of dominance in the 145-pound division — 13 wins in a row — ended at the hands of a guy 5 inches shorter who still managed to hold a 2-inch reach advantage.
Australia’s Alexander Volkanovski, all 5-foot-6 of him, stood toe-to-toe with the 5-11 Holloway for five rounds and was quicker on the exchanges and tough for Holloway to land punches against. It ended up as a unanimous decision with two judges scoring the contest 48-47 and the third 50-45 in favor of Volkanovski, who outstruck Holloway to become the titleholder on Saturday night before a pro-Holloway crowd in the co-main event of UFC 245 at T-Mobile Arena.
>> Click here to see photos of the match between Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski.
“I don’t want to sound like a sore loser. I didn’t watch no tape. I didn’t know what happened,” Holloway said. “I felt like I was doing enough. I thought first round I was feeling him out. Second round I thought I was taking over. Three, four, five I thought was mine.”
The silence of the crowd was a telling sign of how the fight was playing out. The Hawaii flags were on display from one side of the building to the other the entire night. Holloway got the biggest pop during the pre-PPV hype video and the loudest ovation when he walked to the ring.
The crowd was taken out of the fight, save for a handful of brief moments, as Volkanovski executed the perfect game plan to unseat the champion. He stayed patient and hurt Holloway’s leg with a bunch of kicks in the first two rounds.
“He’s really good with his distance. He’s really good with sucking me to his range,” Volkanovski said in the cage after the fight. “Sometimes I started going into his range where he was comfortable and (I) had to pull me out.”
Holloway changed stances in the third round and things started to pick up, but Holloway never could get in a groove and go on a streak of dominating the fight. Every big shot he landed was followed by a counter from Volkanovski.
The Star-Advertiser scored the fight 48-47 in favor of Volkanovski with Holloway winning the second round and the last. One of the two judges had it the same while the other 48-47 scorecard had Holloway winning the last two rounds.
“It always takes me a round or two to start getting going,” Holloway said. “I felt I was having success from mid-second round all the way to third, four, fifth.”
Unlike nearly every one of his victories on his way to becoming the champion, Holloway never quite found the proper range to get his hands on Volkanovski.
The two shared a laugh with each other late in the first round as if signaling to each other they knew it was going a full 25 minutes.
And it did.
Volkanovski (21-1) remained undefeated in the UFC with his eighth win and 18th victory in a row overall, using his cardio to hang in against Holloway (21-5, 17-5) for the full fight.
He never seemed to tire, never got overwhelmed and even had Holloway backing up during the third and fourth rounds.
It was a sight rarely seen when Holloway is in the cage.
“I guess it hasn’t fully set in yet,” Volkanovski said. “I keep myself so composed so that I can get the job done that sometimes it feels like it’s not even happening. I thought it was pretty back and forth, but my corner was telling me that we were getting the job done, so I just kept at it.”
Holloway hadn’t lost at featherweight since a decision to Conor McGregor in August 2013. His four losses since getting submitted in his UFC debut in 2012 have come by decision.
Holloway earned $350,000 with no win bonus according to fight purses released by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
Volkanovski is just the fourth undisputed champion in the nine-year history of the division joining Holloway, McGregor and Jose Aldo.
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