Max Holloway (Josh Hedges/UFC)
Featherweights looking for first UFC win meet on June 1 card
A pair of featherweights coming off similar disappointing results in their UFC debuts have been booked for a June fight.
Max Holloway and Pat Schilling will meet on the preliminary card of the season finale of “The Ultimate Fighter LIVE” on June 1. The UFC recently announced the fight booking, which will take place at The Pearl at The Palms in Las Vegas.
The TUF Live Finale will be headlined by a welterweight contenders bout between Jake Ellenberger and Martin Kampmann. In addition, the lightweight finalists from this season’s reality show will meet to crown the latest Ultimate Fighter winner. The current season airs in a partially live format Friday nights at 10 p.m. on the FX cable network. The main card for the TUF Live Finale also will air on FX.
Holloway (4-1, 0-1 UFC) is a Hawaiian fighter who started his career 4-0 before getting a call from the UFC to fill in for an injured Ricardo Lamas against Dustin Poirier. But Holloway didn’t fare well in the short-notice fight at February’s UFC 143 pay-per-view in Las Vegas. He tapped to a mounted triangle armbar in the first round, which gave Poirier the Submission of the Night bonus. Just 20 years old, Holloway has three of his four wins by decision.
Schilling (5-1, 0-1 UFC) also started his UFC career with a first-round submission loss. He tapped to a rear naked choke from fellow debuting featherweight Daniel Pineda in January at UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller. That fight was booked only about two weeks before the card. Prior to suffering the first loss of his career, the Minnesota-based Schilling, who was working at Best Buy when he found out about his first UFC fight, had won the first five fights of his career by first-round stoppage, including four submissions.