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If Friday’s weigh-ins for UFC 231 are any indication, Waianae’s Max Holloway’s health is just fine. Read more

If Friday’s weigh-ins for UFC 231 are any indication, Waianae’s Max Holloway’s health is just fine.

The featherweight champion tipped the scales at 144.5 pounds in Toronto, clearing the way for his first title defense since 2017.

Holloway was deemed medically unfit for that contest, and missed one other. He meets the last of those potential opponents, undefeated Brian Ortega, in today’s main event.

Ortega, 14-0, came in at 144.75 pounds.

Holloway, 19-3, holds 12-fight winnning streak in the UFC, punctuated by back-to-back knockouts of Jose Aldo. His streak is the fifth-highest in UFC history.

Both fighters are 27 years old, but the promotion is being billed as “the Blessed Era” vs. ‘The New Era.” Holloway, who carries the nickname “Blessed” into the cage with him, isn’t buying it.

“People keep forgetting I’m the younger guy,” Holloway told ESPN.com after making weight. “Everybody is saying he’s the new breed — you all forgot I was 20 when I got into the UFC. I was a newborn baby.”

Holloway is currently No. 5 on the UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings, and says that after he dispatches Ortega his focus will be on scheduling fights that will get him to the top spot. Ortega is not ranked but the No. 1 contender at featherweight.

Ortega has never gone the distance in six UFC fights.

“Both of us have a lot of pressure — being the main event, being these young guys — but I think once we get in there, him and I both know what our objective is and we’re going out there to kill,” Ortega told the Sporting News. “You have two young and hungry people who refuse to quit and one of them has got to give.”

Valentina Shevchenko and Joanna Jedrzejczyk also made weight for their bantamweight title match in the co-main event.