Ilia Topuria has maintained that Max Holloway was ‘forced’ to fight him at UFC 308 by Dana White and co. The featherweight champ has repeated this claim yet again in a recent interview, where he contended that ‘Blessed’ was hesitant to fight him since a loss would make his BMF title irrelevant.

Avoiding fights, of course, is quite out of character for Holloway, who is nothing if not up for a fight. The Hawaiian native proved this again earlier this year by moving up a weight class and taking on Justin Gaethje, one of the most feared strikers in the entire promotion, at UFC 300. And predictably, Holloway has trashed Topuria’s claims about having been compelled to clash against ‘El Matador’.

“I mean it’s just funny, you know. Like he says that but then you can go and you can go and click, there’s an interview of him saying that he won’t fight me if the BMF title wasn’t on the line. And the last time I checked the BMF title is not on the line,” Holloway said.

And that, according to ‘Blessed’, means that Topuria was actually the one ‘forced’ to fight him. “So if anybody got forced to fight, it looks like him, you know. It came out of his own mouth. He said he’s not gonna fight me unless the BMF title is not on the line, and it’s not buddy. So I guess he played himself on that,” Holloway said in a recent interview with MMA Fighting.

Max Holloway, of course, won the resurrected BMF title earlier this year in an explosive, Fight of the Year contender bout against Justin Gaethje on the UFC 300 anniversary mega-card. And Topuria raises an excellent question about what value the belt will have if Holloway loses to him.

Will Max Holloway not be the ‘real’ BMF champion if he loses to Topuria?

Holloway will continue to be the BMF champion even if he loses to Topuria since that title isn’t on the line at UFC 308. But, to be fair, there is an unwritten rule in martial arts- the guy who beats the guy holding a belt is now the rightful holder of that belt, even if he formally isn’t given the belt.

Unless that belt is for a different weight class than the one where the fight takes place since weight classes are almost sacrosanct. For example, Demetrious Johnson may, hypothetically, be one hundred times more talented than, say, Francis Ngannou. But, if they ever actually fought, Ngannou, by sheer virtue of his size would wipe the floor with ‘DJ’.

But since Holloway is fighting at his ‘natural’ weight class and the BMF title isn’t a divisional title, whoever wins that fight will also be the rightful owner of the BMF title. The man who beats the man takes his place. That is the closest thing to a natural law in the fight game and is unlikely to change anytime soon. What are your thoughts on Max Holloway laughing off the notion he was forced into fighting Ilia Topuria?