Max Holloway is one of the most successful featherweight MMA fighters ever and surprisingly, he actually spends some of his time training Jiu-Jitsu in the gi. Although he’s known for his incredible striking, more specifically his boxing, Holloway is also a skilled grappler too. Obviously everyone has to be able to compete in all areas in the modern era of the sport, but Holloway even has a pair of submission wins during his UFC tenure. Both of those wins came by way of guillotine choke and the most recent of them was over a decade ago, but they’re still submission wins over elite opponents.
Holloway has spent almost the entirety of his career in the UFC, as he was signed by the promotion in 2012 after going 4-0 on the regional MMA circuit in his native Hawaii. He had some ups and downs in the early part of his time there but he was also consistently facing fighters with far more experience. It wasn’t until 2014 that Holloway began the incredible win-streak that saw him become the UFC featherweight world champion, defending the belt three times during his reign. Holloway also moved up to fight Dustin Poirier for the interim lightweight title during that same time, amassing an incredible 21-4 professional record before he lost his belt.
Holloway has continued to work his way back into title-contention and has had three attempts at regaining the featherweight title since then. Although he hasn’t been successful in that endeavour yet, he remains one of the most popular fighters on the roster. The focus has always been on his beautiful striking but Holloway is a BJJ brown belt and it’s interesting to see how he rolls under a grappling ruleset. He’s a technical grappler with an impressive arsenal of sweeps and passes, and he’s clearly able to chain together his attempts just as well as many lifelong grapplers in MMA do.
The footage of Max Holloway training Jiu-Jitsu in the gi was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Sanabul:
