UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway pulled out of Saturday’s UFC 226 on Wednesday evening after showing concussion like symptoms.
Holloway was scheduled to defend his featherweight title against Brian Ortega in the co-main event of his fight card and Holloway’s management released a statement to the media.
“Max’s team and UFC staff noticed Max was not normal since late last week,” the statement said via MMA Junkie. “This became obvious to many watching his interviews and public appearances the past few days.
“He was showing concussion-like symptoms before he even started his weight cut and was rushed to the ER on Monday where they admitted him overnight. Initial scans seemed okay, and he was released Tuesday afternoon, but symptoms still continued.
“Max fought with his team to continue with the fight. He showed some improvement over the next day but was still showing obvious symptoms. After open workouts, he crashed and was very hard to wake up. When he did, he had flashing vision and slurred speech. He is now back in the ER for further tests.”
Prior to Holloway being pulled from UFC 226, he appeared on UFC Tonight on FS1. The complete appearance by Holloway on the weekly UFC program on FS1 is below and at the 2:35 mark of his appearance, former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping noticed something seemed off with Holloway.