UFC Interim Featherweight Champion Max Holloway will face UFC Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo in a title unification fight at UFC 212.
Holloway called out Aldo right after his UFC 208 victory, and hoped to fight in February. However, Holloway ended up taking a movie role when Aldo said he had other plans.
“I only took the movie because Aldo came out and said he was going to fight for an interim 155-pound title,” Holloway explained to Fox Sports. “I’m like I’m not going to wait around for this guy. They weren’t going to give me another fight so they gave me a movie role. I took the movie. [Aldo] and his alternative facts, they need to get that straight and we’ll see June 3. We’ll see what happens.”
The movie that Holloway filmed a role for is expected to be released later this year, titled "Den of Thieves." Holloway also says that Aldo has been avoiding him because he wanted easier fights.
“The fight is happening June 3 cause Mr. Aldo didn’t want to show up at [UFC] 205 because he was kicking and crying and complaining to the UFC that he wanted to fight the one guy (Conor McGregor) that everybody is trying to chase and everybody knows who that guy is,” Holloway said. “He was trying to chase that fight and he already had a fight. The fight could have happened way before now. He had the opportunity to fight me at [UFC] 206 but do a little research before coming at me. This is what Jose Aldo said and I quote ‘I don’t want to fight no one except for Conor and if I was to fight someone, I would fight Anthony Pettis because I believe Anthony Pettis is an easier fight and he’s a bigger draw than Max Holloway’. That’s what your champion has been saying. I thought your champion was willing to fight whoever, whenever and go out there and put on a show. Old boy didn’t show.”
UFC 212 takes place on Saturday, June 3 from the HSBC Arena in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil with Jose Aldo and Max Holloway headlining. Fightful will be providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
