Max Holloway carries the flag of his home state Hawaii when he walks out to the ring before his fight.
Full name Jerome Max Keli’l Holloway, the former UFC featherweight champion is of Samoan and Hawaiian lineage, and he is incredibly proud of his ancestry.
However, Max Holloway ran into some obstructions regarding walking out with his flag, and Dana White came to his rescue.
Max Holloway: Dana had to approve me walking out with my flag
Max Holloway shared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast that when he first started to walk out with the Hawaiian flag, sponsors Reebok wanted to stop him. Holloway explained that at that time, Reebok only approved walkouts with national flags, and Hawaii being a state, Holloway could not do that as per the company policy.
So Max Holloway took it to the top brass and got Dana White to say yes to his walkout with the flag.
“They wasn’t going to let me walk out with the Hawaiian flag. When I first started doing it. Cause that’s when the Reebok came out. I couldn’t put Hawaiian flag on my shorts or anything. So I was like, ‘I’m going to walk out with the flag.’ Reebok was stopping it. They were like, ‘you can’t because it’s a state flag,'” Holloway explained.
“I was like, ‘nah, we’re going to talk to Dana…’ Dana texted me and said, ‘That’s stupid as s—t kid, just walk with it.'”
Max Holloway secures a win over Calvin Kattar at UFC Fight Island 7
Max Holloway took on Calvin Kattar in the main event of UFC’s first fight night of 2021. The event took place at Etihad Arena in Fight Island, Abu Dhabi.
The two featherweights went after each other for five rounds that involved brutal action. By the end of the fight, both the fighters were bruised and cut open in several places.
Max Holloway fought like not a single day has passed since his championship reign, even though he has lost two title fights to Alexander Volkanovski in the meantime.
Holloway secured the win with a scorecard of 50-43, 50-43, and 50-42.
Published 17 Jan 2021, 05:28 IST
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