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- Jan 23, 2017
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I've wondered about this for years, Max always labeled a boxer and while he has good straight punching and body work in close with his hands, along with being a talented switch hitter with endless cardio and a granite chin who applies pressure with high volume, his kicks to me always stood out much more than they were mentioned. Especially the stance switching he does, it really gives him more openings for the body kicks. Max always kicked to the body extremely well, has a super underrated turning side kick and goes high deceptively well. If you're like me, a lot of Max's career has become hazy in the last 3 or 4 years between the Volk trilogy, Lamas, Ortega, Kattar but he's one of all time greats at 145lbs so lets go down memory lane, Holloway has been one of my favorite fighters to watch for over a decade now.
First fight where I noticed the kicking game on full display was vs Dennis Bermudez, a fight at the time I actually had Holloway winning, his takedown defense looked great vs at the time a very talented top 10 FW wrestler and the confidence he had throwing kicks blew me away (always liked this fight, haven't rewatched it in maybe 5+ years but I should). Max was going high and landed a nice switch kick to the head on Bermudez, a strong turning sidekick to the body and even spun off a slip and rocked Bermudez with a turning side kick to the head. (can't find a picture or gif of the turning sidekick to the body but it landed clean and sent Bermudez back several feet, Joe Rogan commented on it fondly)
Max vs Chope where he landed that vicious jumping turning side kick against the cage mid combination has always stood out to me
Max Holloway destroying Cub Swanson with body kicks
Max Holloway finishing Anthony Pettis with kicks to the body
Max Holloway dropping Alexander Volkanovski with a head kick, please don't mind the stupid captions I didn't make these gifs and this is the only one I could find of the high kick. Max actually set this up really well with hand feints and faked kicks to gauge reactions.
Bonus content
Has Max been kicking less in recent years?
First fight where I noticed the kicking game on full display was vs Dennis Bermudez, a fight at the time I actually had Holloway winning, his takedown defense looked great vs at the time a very talented top 10 FW wrestler and the confidence he had throwing kicks blew me away (always liked this fight, haven't rewatched it in maybe 5+ years but I should). Max was going high and landed a nice switch kick to the head on Bermudez, a strong turning sidekick to the body and even spun off a slip and rocked Bermudez with a turning side kick to the head. (can't find a picture or gif of the turning sidekick to the body but it landed clean and sent Bermudez back several feet, Joe Rogan commented on it fondly)
Max vs Chope where he landed that vicious jumping turning side kick against the cage mid combination has always stood out to me
Max Holloway destroying Cub Swanson with body kicks
Max Holloway finishing Anthony Pettis with kicks to the body
Max Holloway dropping Alexander Volkanovski with a head kick, please don't mind the stupid captions I didn't make these gifs and this is the only one I could find of the high kick. Max actually set this up really well with hand feints and faked kicks to gauge reactions.
Bonus content
Has Max been kicking less in recent years?