The 2021 schedule of the UFC kicks off with a main event between Max Holloway and Calvin Kattar. Ahead of the fight, the former champ detailed how his training camp has gone for this fight.
Holloway is on a two-fight skid, heading into his Fight Island bout with Calvin Kattar. This event kicks off the UFC’s three cards in a week, and will see “Blessed” look to rebound from back-to-back losses to Alexander Volkanovski.
The first time he fought Volkanovski, Max got dominated en route to losing his title. While fans expected a similar result in the rematch, especially upon hearing that Max only trained with coaches via Zoom, the second fight was far more competitive.
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Max Holloway Trained In Person This Time
It was quite bizarre to hear that Max Holloway was only able to train over Zoom for his last fight. Moreover, it made his improved performance in the second Volkanovski fight all the more impressive.
Heading into this fight with Calvin Kattar, Max said in a recent interview, that he actually got to train with his coaches in person this time around. So he says you can expect to see an even better version of him in this outing.
“The last fight was off of Zoom, this fight I actually got to actually see some of my coaches in person before the fight, so it’s going to be amazing.”
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Saying No To Sparring
Although he is back to training in person, Max Holloway says that he is still nt doing any sparring. He feels that over the years he has had enough hard physical sparring to know what he is doing.
Instead of going all out in the gym, he is focused on drilling his skills. This makes Max feel like his health and career are going to be preserved through this change.
“I feel great. I haven’t been sparring, I kind of took that out. I believe I had enough full contact sparring. We’ll move and stuff but it’s not like sparring,” Holloway said.
“Save the brain cells for old time’s sake. It’s like professionals, the way we attack and always focus on my health.
“When you see the professional teams, the NFL teams, these guys don’t (wear) full pads and don’t go hitting already. They did enough of that. They go out there, they do the gameplan and they practice their skills.
“That’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been practicing my skills a bunch, and I can’t wait to show you guys.”
It is good to see that Max Holloway is putting a focus on his health, especially given some of concerns about his health in the past. It will be interesting to see how he performs in this fight, after having a more traditional training camp.
