Max Holloway’s final chance to reclaim the division he once owned

LAS VEGAS — Max Holloway should be under a lot of pressure.

It’s Saturday, June 25, seven days before he is set to face Alexander Volkanovski for the third time at UFC 276 and Holloway (23-6) is sitting inside T-Mobile Arena for the first time since December 2019, when he surrendered the featherweight championship to Volkanovski via unanimous decision in their first meeting. The trilogy will also take place at T-Mobile Arena next weekend.

But as Holloway casually leans back in one of the 20,000 seats, which will be filled by a sold-out crowd Saturday, he doesn’t appear to be feeling any extra nerves.

With the first fight in 2019 being so close — and Holloway having been such a dominant champion leading up to it — the UFC booked an immediate rematch in July 2020 on Fight Island, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Holloway lost again in an empty arena, in a split decision that was even closer than the first.

Holloway has never complained about the scoring of either five-round fight, but when asked how he felt after each of them, he answers honestly.

“For sure, both times [I thought I did enough to win],” Holloway told ESPN. “But like a wise man once said, it is what it was.”

Over the past two years, Holloway has forced the issue of a third meeting against Volkanovski. It’s a notoriously difficult thing to do in combat sports, force a third fight against an opponent who has already beaten you twice — but Holloway made it an easy call, by defeating Calvin Kattar in a historic…