Max Holloway backs fellow Hawaiian BJ Penn in hopes for Hawaiian UFC event

Hawaiian featherweight Max Holloway sticks with his own when it comes to other fighters, as he threw his support behind fellow Hawaiian BJ Penn in his comeback fight against Ricardo Lamas.

“BJ is a legend, it should be a fun fight. If Ricardo tries to stick and move on BJ, take him down and get in BJ’s guard, but BJ can get his back and it’s over,” Holloway said on Monday’s edition of the MMA Hour. “A motivated BJ Penn is a dangerous thing.”

Holloway, who debuted in the UFC back in 2012, is one of several Hawaiian fighters on the UFC roster alongside Yancy Medeiros, Brad Tavares and Travis ‘Hapa’ Browne. But the first and most successful of all Hawaiian UFC fighters, who arguably paved the way for the rest of them, is none other than our website’s namesake, BJ Penn.

“I gotta stick with the Hawaiian so we can get this UFC Hawaii thing going,” Holloway said of Penn’s upcoming fight with Lamas.

Penn and Holloway have lobbied for a UFC event in Hawaii for quite some time, yet the octagon has yet to come to the Aloha State in its’ 23 years of existence. But with Holloway, riding high on the crest of a nine fight win-streak, coupled with the return of former lightweight and welterweight champion BJ Penn, the time for a UFC card in Hawaii appears to be a very real possibility for the promotion, who are looking to make inroads in MMA markets across the globe.

“There’s a lot of great Hawaiian fighters in the UFC now,” Ariel Helwani told KHON2 in an interview with the station’s Sports Director Rob DeMello. “It kind of started with BJ Penn and I think a lot of these young fighters looked up to him. Now we’re seeing them blossom into superstars.”