The former featherweight champion is fighting Calvin Kattar. The fight is going to be the main event for a fight night on 16 January 2021. It will be the first non-PPV event for Holloway since 23 August 2015. Even though Holloway lost his 3 of his last 4 fights, he still looks to be one of the top contenders in the featherweight division.
Both Holloway and Volkanosvki are the clear top 2 in the division. Holloway is looking forward to fighting Volkanovski for the third time even though he lost twice already. The second match was very close that most fighters and fans thought Holloway edged the decision. Unfortunately for Holloway, two of the three judges scored it differently and gave it to Volkanovski.
Even though Holloway is going to be the favorite coming to the fight, he should not look past Calvin Kattar. Similar to Holloway’s style, Kattar has technical boxing skills that are above decent.
Kattar uses his range and timing very precisely. Holloway is known to throw volume punches that are relentless that the opponent has no time to throw but just choose to cover up. Kattar is more accurate and technical which leads to more pinpoint knockout and Holloway just does not let his opponent rest even for a second.
Kattar has had 2 fights for the year 2020 with which he won both. The first one was against Jeremy Stephens where he landed a perfectly timed elbow that led to a technical knockout. The other one was against Dan Ige who was a rising star, but he just had no answer to Kattar’s crisp boxing.
The fight is going to be one of the most important fights in the featherweight division since it is likely that the winner will fight for the title as their next fight. If Kattar wins, it is very likely that he fights for the belt next but if Holloway he may need another fight since he already had a back-to-back loss against the current Champion.
Although, some reports say that Volkanovski is aiming to fight Brian Ortega for his next defense. Ortega is coming off a win after a long layoff and it was fast-tracked to a title shot and does not really deserve the title shot on paper. In his defense, no other fighter deserves the title shot right now, so he may have been in the right place at the right time.
If Ortega somehow beats Volkanovski and Holloway wins his fight against Kattar, we might likely see a rematch of Ortega vs Holloway. In the fight with Holloway vs Ortega, the fight was so brutal that Ortega ended up with a doctor stoppage.
Ortega needed a long layoff for the recovery and improve his game. When he returned, he showed high-level striking that shocked the Korean Zombie. Ortega evolved and got even better during his comeback fight against Chan Sung Jung.
Another option for Holloway is he could move up and try to fight for the lightweight belt. Even though he lost to Poirier, there were some moments where he caught Poirier in which he could have turned the tide of the fight. He may have needed time to prepare for the lightweight division. Since the belt may be vacated by Khabib, the lightweight crown is up for grabs once more. Some fighters find success moving up and some don’t.
