UFC president Dana White confirmed Wednesday that plans are in the works for Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway to meet in a rematch of their featherweight world title fight of last year.
Volkanovski dethroned Holloway on Dec. 14, taking the featherweight crown via a unanimous decision at UFC 245 in Las Vegas.
Talk of a rematch has circulated ever since, though multidivision champion Henry Cejudo had also signaled his interest in a showdown with Volkanovski. But Cejudo has since indicated he is likely to retire, a move White says has removed the American from any potential fight plans moving forward.
“That’s one of those things that I always talk about, if you look at the history of the last 20 years and Cejudo’s been talking about retirement for a while, when a guy starts talking about retirement you should retire,” White told SportsCenter.
“And I love Henry Cejudo, he’s had a great run here. And if his head was really into and he was down to dive in and fight anybody, I’d be all about it.
“When you start talking about retirement, you need to retire. So I don’t even consider Henry Cejudo for any fights, period. He’s retired.”
Volkanovski had earlier this year indicated he would be willing to fight Cejudo at featherweight, but he was also skeptical about the American’s seriousness about jumping up a further weight division.
And the Australian, who continues to work his way back to full training after he suffered a broken hand in his win over Holloway, now looks almost certain to face off with the Hawai’i native instead.
“If you start talking about Volkanovski, we’re talking about Max Holloway,” White said.
“[Brian] Ortega and the Korean Zombie (Chan Sung Jung) are going to fight. You know how I just went out and said the [Tony] Ferguson fight against [Justin] Gaethje, I said I absolutely positively guarantee you that this fight will be great? That’s the same thing with Brian Ortega versus the Korean Zombie; there’s no way that that fight is boring and the guy that comes out of that would be next in line for a title shot.
“But right now we’ve been talking about the rematch with Volkanovski and Holloway.”
White also said the UFC was “close” to confirming a fight between New Zealander Dan Hooker and American Dustin Poirier for June 27.