Max Holloway wants to run it back with Conor McGregor and Alexander Volkanovski - providing if he can get past Yair Rodriguez on Saturday night. 

Former UFC featherweight champion Holloway (22-6) is gunning for revenge following consecutive defeats to Volkanovski, 33, in Las Vegas in 2019, and in Abu Dhabi a year later.  

'Notorious' Irishman McGregor defeated a young Holloway by unanimous decision when the pair met in the octagon back in August 2013.

But The Blessed Express got back on the tracks with a sublime performance against Calvin Kattar on January 16 as he taught the Boston finisher a lesson he'll never forget. 

And now, Hawaiian-American Holloway takes on Rodriguez in the main event of an action-packed UFC Fight Night 197 card in Las Vegas this weekend. 

But it seems he has bigger fish to fry as he insisted he wants to avenge both those defeats. 

““I’ve got five title defences and I would like that sixth," Holloway told MMA Fighting.

"But, you know, with possible fights and stuff, there are bigger fights that UFC discussed with us. 

"I've got a win over the 155 champ [Charles Oliveira] right now.

"We’re always on the shortlist for Conor [McGregor] and like I said, that last fight, before we got injured, we were one of the replacement fighters.

"And then, I’m the best boxer in the UFC. So, use your imagination, my friend. It’s a wild world today."

Conor McGregor defeated Max Holloway via unanimous decision

While Holloway claims to be 'always on the shortlist' to fight McGregor, he isn't exactly sure if the fight will ever actually happen. 

“Obviously, Conor wants Dustin Poirier, or he wants Nate Diaz, or whatever," he added.

"But anybody at ’45 or ’55 after those guys, my name pops up. You can go call Hunter Campbell right now.

"Ask him – Who can sell? Who’s gonna sell numbers with Conor? And they’re gonna drop my name all the time.

"So, at the end of the day, I’m always on the shortlist for Conor, so we’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens. First things first, I’ve got to fight November 13th and we’ll go from there.”

Volkanovski defeated Brian Ortega in his last outing, but Holloway wasn't impressed by what he saw from either of his two former opponents. 

He continued: “I got to see some clips, some highlights, and it went exactly as I thought.

“If it was a striking match, I thought Alex was going to pick him apart. And then whenever they got close, I thought Brian would go in to try to wrap him up, and that’s pretty much what happened.

"I thought Alex did well, but at the end of the day, I don’t know how it felt to get dropped by Brian or even to get wrapped up by Brian.

"So, in all actuality, Brian didn’t do that well against me, so I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.”

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