The Octagon returns to Toronto on Saturday night with Max’Blessed’ Holloway defending his featherweight belt against undefeated Brian’T-City Ortega at the UFC 231 headliner in Scotiabank Arena.
At early Friday night, most books had Ortega (14-0-1 MMA, 6-0-1 UFC) recorded as a -125 favorite with a total of 3.5 rounds (‘under’ -125,’over’ -105). Holloway was the brief’chalk’ for many months before Thursday when the 27-year-old Ortega took over the favourite function.
Holloway (19-3 MMA, 15-3 UFC) has won 12 consecutive battles since losing a unanimous decision against Conor’The Notorious’ McGregor in UFC Boston on August 17 of 2013. In this incredible run, the 27-year-old Hawaiian has completed nine of 12 foes and collected five fight-night bonuses.
Holloway entered the name image in 2015 by submitting Cub Swanson, beating Charles Oliveira and making decision successes over Cole Miller and Jeremy Stephens. Subsequently in 2016 Holloway knocked off Ricardo Lamas by choice, enticing’The Bully’ to a swing-for-the-fences competition in the final 10 minutes of the scrap (it was barbarous!) .
The victory over Lamas garnered Holloway a shot at the interim 145-pound strap against former lightweight champion Anthony’Showtime’ Pettis. Holloway won the belt by simply taking out Pettis with a third-round knockout at UFC 206 at Toronto.
Next,’Blessed’ took on the legendary Jose Aldo Jr. to combine the featherweight belts. Holloway went into Aldo’s hometown of Rio and defeat him by way of third-round KO in UFC 212. Then from the rematch in Detroit at UFC 218, Holloway once more won using a third-round KO of Aldo on Dec. two of 2017.
Advertisement Coming into 2018, Holloway had the look of one the promotion’s most dominant champions. However, he had to withdraw from his scheduled March 3 title defense against former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar because of an injury. When Tony Ferguson was injured doing press a week before confronting Khabib Nurmagomedov for Ferguson’s interim lightweight buckle, Holloway accepted an offer to confront Nurmagomedov on just six days of notice.
The battle April 7 did not occur, though, since the New York Athletic Commission forced Holloway to quit cutting weight — out of health/safety concerns — on Friday morning. He had been scheduled to defend his featherweight title against Ortega in UFC 226 on July 7, however, he had been pulled from the struggle due to”concussion-like symptoms.”
Holloway was placed on the shelf while doctors ran various tests. The health care individuals never quite figured out exactly what the problem was to get the featherweight kingpin, but they nonetheless cleared him to return to fighting. There was a good deal of chatter concerning how Holloway’s weight reduction would go, but he stepped on the scale this morning and then hit his mark with a half-pound to spare at 144.5 pounds.
Ortega had an easy weight cut and was among the fighters to generate his number. He’s less than 24 hours off from his shot at satisfying a lifelong fantasy.

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