UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway has a difficult task on his hands. Now the title holder’s nutritionist has come forward to reveal just how big the challenge may be.
UFC 223 is set to go down this Saturday night, April 7, inside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The live pay-per-view event was originally set to see Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov face off for the undisputed lightweight title in the night’s headliner.
However, Ferguson has since pulled out of the fight due to an injury. On just six days notice, Max Holloway accepted the challenge to move up in weight and face Nurmagomedov for the lightweight belt.
Despite the fact that Holloway will be facing an undefeated mixed martial arts phenom on extremely short notice, Holloway will also only have six days to make weight for the fight.
With a title on the line, both competitors will have to be spot on at the weigh-ins and Holloway has a lengthy flight from his Hawaiian home to make before starting his weigh cut. Speaking to Bloody Elbow, Holloway’s nutritionist George Lockhart revealed that the UFC featherweight’s weight cut will tie for his largest weight cut challenge yet.
“I saw [Max’s manager Brian Butler’s] number show up on my phone, and he was like, “Hey man, do you think you can get Max down to 155?” and he gave me his weight. I was like, “Uhhh, give me a sec.” I had to call Tyler Minton [who is part of the Lockhart & Leith team], who worked with Max for his last fight, and we were running numbers back and forth, and seeing where he previously was fight week.
“Then I had to talk to Max and ask him what he had been eating, if he had been training. God’s honest truth, I was hoping he was eating crap, because if he was eating crap and we cleaned it up, we could drop some weight really quick, but the kid has been eating decently. I found out his body fat percentage and worked out how much water he had to lose.
“The way he cut weight for his last fight, and the time before that, showed me the kid’s an animal and he’s very disciplined, so we went ahead with it. I know Max is going to do what he needs to do.
“Yeah, this is literally tied with the biggest cut I’ve ever done. It’s the exact same number as the biggest cut that I’ve ever done in my life.”
