Max Holloway shuts down talk that the winner of his fight against Alexander Volkanovski is the featherweight GOAT: ‘Do we forget the man Jose Aldo?’

Max Holloway doesn’t think his UFC 276 title fight against Alexander Volkanovski determines the best featherweight alive.

Both Holloway and Volkanovski had lengthy title reigns and both have beaten Jose Aldo, yet the Hawaiian still thinks Aldo is the featherweight GOAT. In the lead-up to this fight, there has been a lot of talk that the winner of Volkanovski-Holloway 3 becomes the featherweight GOAT but Holloway says that is not true.

“Not at all. A lot of fans, a lot of people are saying it. Do we forget the man Jose Aldo? The man got eight title wins,” Holloway said at UFC 276 media day. “I have five title wins. Until someone can beat his records as a champion with the eight title wins, then they can consider themselves the GOAT in featherweight. I got five to get here. To get Alex for my sixth title win. That’s just the cherry on top.”

As Holloway says, Jose Aldo defended the UFC featherweight title seven times as well as defending the WEC featherweight belt twice which is why Max Holloway thinks he is the GOAT. As long as both him and Alexander Volkanovski have less title wins than Aldo, the Brazilian is still the featherweight GOAT.

“It’s cool I’ve got the wins, but the title defenses are the title defenses,” Holloway said. “That is the actual record. He got eight title wins, I’ve got five. We’re not that far behind him. Hopefully, I can catch him, we’ll see what happens. He’s the GOAT, bro. You can’t take it away. Just because he got gifted it, the event that the UFC bought out and he was the champion, it wasn’t a gift. I’m sure if they told him, ‘Hey you’ve got to fight for the belt.’ He would’ve fought for the belt. That’s just the kind of guy Aldo is. Standup guy, hard worker, and hard fighter and the GOAT.”