MAX HOLLOWAY HAS been chasing a rematch with Conor McGregor ever since their August 2013 bout in Boston, and the UFC featherweight contender has stepped up his pursuit by questioning the legitimacy of the injury which kept McGregor out of the octagon for almost a year afterwards.
McGregor won the bout by unanimous decision but Holloway remains the only opponent that the Irishman has failed to finish inside the distance. A significant factor in that is likely to have been the fact that McGregor tore the anterior cruciate ligament [ACL] in his left knee in the second round.
The current UFC featherweight champion subsequently required surgery and didn’t fight again until July 2014, when he overcame Diego Brandao via first-round TKO in the main event at UFC Fight Night 46 in Dublin.
However, Holloway — who has won eight fights on the trot since the loss to McGregor — has bizarrely expressed in an interview with Submission Radio that the Dubliner may have been faking the injury.
Holloway insisted that he was also injured during the fight, as well as incorrectly claiming that the rehabilitation time [six months] after reconstructive surgery on an ACL injury is nine-to-twelve months.
When asked about a potential rematch, Holloway said: “McGregor is a different fighter from then, I’m a different fighter from then, so we’ll see. Everybody tells me… I’m not making an excuse or whatever, but he talked about his fucking blown ACL or whatever, which I totally do not believe, because if he had a blown ACL he probably wouldn’t be able to walk or whatever, let alone fight.
“So I was tripping out how people believe him and people are saying that he was injured for the whole fight. He was only injured for the last round. He got hurt in the last ten seconds of the last round. And then when I fought, I hurt my ankle in the first 30 seconds of the first round.
“You know, that really did mess me up. I couldn’t move. I usually move out there, but if you go watch that fight, I hardly move. I stand in front of him, I move straight back, I move straight forward. And that’s not what Max Holloway usually does. So it’d be a way different fight from what it was from then to now, you know.
And I think they know it. I think his whole team knows that it’d be a great fight. So we’ll see what happens. I’m just waiting for the call and hopefully it’s soon.”
Holloway added: “His camp and him or whatever, or his fans just think that he blew… like his whole ACL was blown out when he fought me, which just blew my mind. Because you see these humongous athletes, NFL players blow their ACL, and they’re crying like little kids and they can’t even step on it. And this guy was fighting on it for five minutes? It’s ridiculous.
“And then if you look at the timeline of when we fought and [when he] got that blown ACL thing or whatever, it takes like nine-to-twelve months to recover. And that’s just to recover. That’s after the surgery or whatever. That’s just to recover and then probably longer with doing the rehab and stuff.
“But he fought within nine months after we fought, I think. I think it was nine months or ten months, but he fought within a year I think when he fought whoever he fought after me [Diego Brandao]. So my mind is just blown, man. I don’t know where these guys are coming up with these injuries. I swear he’s injured after every fight; he comes out saying he has an injury.”
