UFC 231: Holloway vs. Ortega preview and predictions

Max Holloway vs. Brian Ortega

For this writer’s money, this is a fight not only for the featherweight belt but for the pound-for-pound top spot; the UFC doesn’t acknowledge it that way, but Max Holloway’s wins over Jose Aldo definitively have him in that territory, and defending his championship against a young and hungry contender would cement him as the best fighter in the world today (perhaps save for Robert Whittaker and TJ Dillashaw, who also have an argument). A win for Brian Ortega would be momentous as well; after a somewhat incomprehensible title run, Ortega may be the one to dethrone the most systematically devastating fighter in the world with a style that is the exact opposite.

There isn’t much in Brian Ortega’s last few fights that inspire confidence when he’s facing Max Holloway. For most of the fight, Ortega is pretty ordinary; his jiu-jitsu is lethal but he doesn’t wrestle, and his offensive striking is decent but not great. Defensively, Ortega has looked mediocre-to-bad; everyone that’s really tried to connect on Ortega has been able to. Ortega has developed a bit of a shoulder roll that he tried to use against Edgar, but Edgar was able to connect with his flurries just the same, Cub Swanson ripped apart his body, Renato Moicano outslicked him for two rounds and Clay Guida was ahead going into the third. Where Ortega has excelled is pace and decision-making; Ortega’s pace was what ultimately won him the Moicano fight, as Moicano gassed under the steady pressure and bodywork of Ortega, and Ortega’s ability to make actionable reads has been nothing short of spectacular. Despite an odd style that doesn’t really facilitate the use of his greatest asset on paper (his elite grappling), Ortega has thrived and finished everyone that he has faced in ways that seem pulled out of thin-air but absolutely genius.

However, if there’s one man he isn’t going to outpace or outsmart, that man is likely Max Holloway. Holloway’s preferred pace is actually more insane than Ortega’s; Holloway drove a tempo against Aldo in the second fight that was almost unprecedented in the UFC as a whole. Holloway’s dedicated body attack matches up well with how Cub Swanson dealt with Ortega on the feet, and it likely amplifies the cardio difference. Holloway is also a very intelligent and adaptable fighter; his elite jab allows him to take in information about his opponent’s reactions, which he ruthlessly exploits. Ortega’s reads are dangerous from moment-to-moment, but Holloway’s reads are the type that makes comebacks nearly impossible; by the time Holloway gets a finish, Holloway has already read all of his opponent’s tendencies and has likely already broken them with his pace and with his bodywork. Holloway is a decent anti-wrestler and he’s hard to force into the clinch (as Ortega did to finish Swanson); Jose Aldo tried to clinch a few times to get a break, and Holloway either smacked him on the way in or framed out and hit him.

If there’s an opponent similar to Ortega in Holloway’s resume, it’s probably Ricardo Lamas. A vicious finisher with eternal cardio, Lamas isn’t always losing until he wins, but he makes his living off opportunism and taking full advantage of small errors. Holloway put together a perfect fight against Ricardo Lamas, just absolutely shut him out for three rounds, and something similar can be expected here with a likely late finish as Holloway’s work snowballs and Ortega can’t redeem the fight. It’s difficult to find an actionable advantage for Ortega against Holloway, considering that Ortega isn’t a wrestler (so he has to win on the feet to implement his grappling) and Ortega’s best qualities on the feet approach their Platonic ideal in Holloway’s game, and that will likely show on December 8th.

Prediction: Holloway via fourth-round knockout.