UFC Fight Island 7 preview: Max Blessed’ Holloway takes on Calvin Kattar for the main event

Former champion Max Holloway is set to take on Calvin Kattar in the UFC Fight Island 7 main event at the Etihad Arena on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.

Coming from a close split-decision loss to Alex Volkanovski in  UFC 251 last July, Holloway would be out there to make a statement in the 145-pound division. He is technically gifted and is known to have an iron chin when taking hits. His opponent, Khattar, won two big fights in 2020, knocking out veteran brawler Jeremy Stephens and outpointing Dan Ige and would be high on confidence.

Carlos Condit will be fighting Matt Brown in what seems to be his last UFC fight, according to MMA Mania. Ever since his loss to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 154, Condit has been rather unimpressive. He has since then won three and lost eight fights, four of them being knock-out losses. 40-year-old Brown on the other hand is coming off a technical knockout loss to Miguel Baeza and has 10 losses by submission in his career, something not to be proud of going against Condit.

In another fight of the event, Santiago Ponzinibbio is up against Li Jingliang. Li is expected to have a tough time, keeping in mind how precise and powerful Santiago is with his strikes. However, Li should be relieved since Santiago has not fought for almost three years. 

The other two fights in the main card include Joaquin Buckley vs. Alessio Di Chirico and Punahele Soriano vs. Dusko Todorovic.