Sean O’Malley’s head coach, Tim Welch, broke down Max Holloway’s legendary knockout win against Justin Gaethje.
Last Saturday’s UFC 300 will go down as one of the most memorable MMA events of all time. Many factors played into the special night, but none were more significant than Holloway’s last-second knockout win to dethrone Gaethje of the BMF title.
Millions of fans have praised Holloway’s performance at UFC 300, but not many can break down what led to the masterclass like Tim Welch. The highly-respected MMA coach shared a YouTube video detailing why ‘Blessed’ emerged victorious, leading to the following quote:
“In this fight, [Holloway] was just so good at keeping Justin at his range, and he was a little bit faster than Justin. A lot of times Justin was throwing one, two-punch combos, really trying to crack Max, and Max was able to just defend them and get out of the way, and then cover them and then sit in the pocket and trade when he needed to.”
At the end of round one, Holloway landed a spinning back kick that broke Gaethje’s nose and changed the trajectory of the fight. Welch had this to say about how the injury was difficult for ‘The Highlight’ to overcome:
“Justin is still fighting through that broken nose. You can still see him feeling it. You can’t breathe out of your nose, you’re use to breathing out of your nose, and then another spin. You don’t plan for those kind of things. That’s why like visualization, people talk about visualization so much. That is such a hard thing to do because there’s so many different things that can happen in a fight, visualizing everything. There’s no way he visualized, hey, in that first round I’m gonna bust my nose and have to deal with that the whole fight.”
Watch the fight-ending sequence of Holloway vs Gaethje below:
Tim Welch sympathizes with Justin Gaethje’s family and friends who watched him get knocked out
The dark side of MMA involves a fighter’s loved ones watching them acquire significant damage. At UFC 300, Justin Gaethje’s family and friends were on the wrong side of one of the most unforgettable knockouts of all time. Tim Welch sympathized with them by saying this during the previously mentioned YouTube video:
“Justin had a little collar tie with his left hand and, boom, Holloway snuck it in and just crumples him, crumples him. God, that was sad to see just because Justin’s parents were behind us. Justin is such a bada*s legend. Seeing a guy like that go down that hard, it’s like ugh. People forget these people have to live with this, this brain damage. People’s families are there watching this person, their strength and condition, their whole team is there and just watching your person go down like that, it’s hard.”
Max Holloway called out featherweight champion Ilia Topuria following his $600,000 performance bonus-winning knockout at UFC 300. Topuria discredited Holloway’s latest win before agreeing they will likely fight later this year at an unknown date and location.
Watch Welch’s YouTube video about Holloway vs Gaethje below:
