Dana White: Max Holloway vs. Alexander Volkanovski ‘not happening’ at UFC 243

Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

Australian fans hoping for a featherweight title fight at UFC 243 will be disappointed to hear that Max Holloway vs. Alexander Volkanovski won’t be happening in October.

On Thursday, UFC president Dana White officially shut down any possibility that Holloway would return to defend his title against Volkanovski at the upcoming card scheduled for Melbourne, Australia on Oct. 5.

The fight was never official for that card but Volkanovski pushed to make it happen in hopes that he could compete for UFC gold in front of a home audience in Australia.

Unfortunately, Holloway just battled Frankie Edgar for five rounds in July and White doesn’t want to burden him with another weight cut down to 145 pounds on such a short timeline after his last title defense.

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening,” White told Submission Radio when asked if Holloway vs. Volkanovski would take place at UFC 243. “I don’t think that Max could turn around and cut the weight again that fast.

“So, I don’t want to put him in that type of situation.”

Holloway didn’t make any promises that he’d be willing to make a quick turnaround to essentially compete again just two months after his fight against Edgar ended.

It was always a longshot that the UFC would attempt to book the fight that close to Holloway’s bout against Edgar in July and now it appears the featherweight champion will wait for a later date to defend his title again.

The good news for Volkanovski is that he still remains the top choice to earn the next crack at the featherweight belt once Holloway is ready to compete again.

UFC 243 will be headlined by a middleweight title unification bout as Robert Whittaker takes on Israel Adesanya in a five round bout at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne.