Are the people of New Orleans upset that UFC 318 won’t include any official title fights this Saturday? Nope – not when the BMF title is up for grabs. Max Holloway, the former UFC Featherweight champion and current BMF titleholder, will take on former interim Lightweight champ Dustin Poirier in the main event; it’s the rubber match between these two warriors, and Poirier’s retirement match as well.
It may be a cliche, but this is anyone’s fight to win. The UFC betting lines at Bodog Sportsbook have Holloway very slightly favoured at –135 as we go to press, with Poirier hot on his heels at +115. You couldn’t ask for a more competitive main event.
That BMF title, though. What is it, exactly, and why is it being featured so prominently this Saturday at the Smoothie King Center? Bodog Sportsbook has the answers in our exclusive UFC 318 betting preview.
They Say This Cat Holloway is a Bad Mother…
Forgive the “Theme from Shaft” reference, but we’re talking about Holloway – the reigning BMF champion, having won the title in April 2024 at UFC 300 after knocking out Justin Gaethje. The “B” in “BMF” stands for Baddest, and the “MF” stands for… well, you know.
There were two official title fights on the card at UFC 300, but they were overshadowed by this epic battle between two of this sport’s greatest showmen. Holloway broke Gaethje’s nose early with a spinning back kick, but Gaethje, like Poirier a former interim Lightweight champion, refused to surrender. The fight went to the fifth and final round, where Holloway, despite being well ahead on points, invited Gaethje to slug it out in the middle of the Octagon – which they did, until Holloway finally scored the KO with just one second left on the clock.
How important was this fight to the UFC, and to Holloway? After the dust cleared, Holloway was awarded two separate $300,000 bonuses: one for Fight of the Night, and one for Performance of the Night. That gave him a total estimated payout of $2.73 million for UFC 300, just behind the $2.85 million earned by Alex Pereira, who successfully defended the Light Heavyweight title in the main event versus Jamahal Hill.
Is Poirier Bad Enough?
While Saturday will mark the third fight between Poirier and Holloway (Poirier won the first in February 2012 via triangle armbar, Holloway the second in April 2019 via unanimous decision to win the interim Lightweight strap), their trilogy fight could easily have happened at UFC 300. Poirier challenged Gaethje for the BMF title in July 2023 at UFC 291, only to lose in the second round when Gaethje floored him with a head kick.
That was a stunning loss for Poirier in more ways than one. His first bout with Gaethje was an absolute barnburner. They headlined a UFC on Fox card in April 2018, and Poirier got his hand raised after a fourth-round TKO, securing Fight of the Night honours in the process. This was the consensus Fight of the Year for 2018, and exactly the kind of match that promoter Dana White had in mind when he unveiled the BMF championship in 2019.
There’s no shame in losing to someone as talented as Gaethje, but their rematch for the BMF title may have happened a bit too late. Poirier’s career arguably peaked in 2021 when he defeated Conor McGregor not once, but twice, both times by TKO. Those wins earned Poirier two more cracks at the Lightweight title; he lost both, to Charles Oliveira in December 2021, and his most recent fight against Islam Makhachev in June 2024.
Let’s not count out Poirier just yet. Saturday may be his retirement bout, which he hinted at following his loss to Makhachev at UFC 302, but Poirier is anything but washed up at age 36 – just three years older than Holloway. Poirier earned Fight of the Night honours yet again versus Makhachev, his third such bonus in his last four bouts. And his retirement fight will be on home soil, about a two-hour drive from his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana.
Bragging Rights vs. Belts
There’s nothing more important in sports than winning the championship – or is there? Combat sports in particular have shifted much of the focus away from titles, even away from the athletes, and more towards the promotions themselves.
This trend is most visible in boxing, where YouTubers like Jake Paul have taken over by fighting famous, but clearly overmatched oldsters like Mike Tyson. As they say, money talks; after decades of “alphabet” titles and faceless champions diluting the sport, boxing fans just want to see their favourite fighters in action, win or lose.
Mixed martial arts hasn’t gone quite as far down this road. The UFC is easily the top promotion, and their titleholders are widely recognized as the best in the business. But those shiny gold UFC belts have indeed become less meaningful as they’ve grown in number, through the creation of additional weight divisions for both men and women, and the much-maligned “interim” championships.
The turning point for MMA may have come in March 2016, when McGregor faced Nate Diaz in the main event at UFC 196. This bout was changed multiple times due to injuries and other setbacks, leaving Diaz to step in with just 11 days’ notice and take on McGregor at 170 pounds – two weight classes higher than McGregor’s previous fight in December 2015, when he knocked out Jose Aldo in 13 seconds to win the Featherweight title.
Did it matter to MMA fans that McGregor’s title wasn’t on the line at UFC 196? Apparently not; this became the promotion’s highest-selling PPV at the time with an estimated 1.3 million buys, and after Diaz handed McGregor his first defeat inside the Octagon (via rear-naked choke in the second round), their August 2016 rematch at UFC 202 did even bigger business at 1.6 million buys.
What are we Fighting for?
While McGregor won their second fight (also at 170 pounds) by majority decision to cement his place atop the MMA world, Diaz wouldn’t show up again in the UFC until August 2019, when he beat former Lightweight champion Anthony Pettis by unanimous decision in the co-main event at UFC 241. And that’s when the BMF title as we know it was born.
“We’re fighting for the baddest [expletive] in the game belt, and that’s mine,” Diaz told UFC commentator Joe Rogan during the post-fight interview at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. “I would like to defend it against Jorge Masvidal.”
Diaz got his wish. Seizing the promotional opportunity, UFC owners Zuffa (now operating as TKO) filed all the necessary trademark applications, and White announced at the press conference for UFC 244 that Diaz and Masvidal would indeed fight for the BMF title – with an actual belt on the line at New York’s iconic Madison Square Garden.
Masvidal was the right man for the job. Although he never did win an official title in the UFC, Masvidal was one of the most popular fighters anywhere, and fresh off his five-second flying-knee knockout of Ben Askren at UFC 239. Diaz lasted a while longer when he and Masvidal touched gloves in November 2019, but ultimately lost via doctor stoppage at the end of the third round because of a cut over his right eye.
A Little Goes a Long Way
It looked like we’d seen the last of the BMF title. Masvidal never did defend his strap – in fact, he never won another fight inside the Octagon, dropping back-to-back Welterweight title shots to Kamaru Usman, then losing twice more to Colby Covington and Gilbert Burns before calling it a career. The genie was out of the bottle, though. Masvidal and Diaz would meet again in the boxing ring in 2024 (also in Anaheim), where Diaz won by majority decision to even his career record at 1-1, having dropped a unanimous decision to Jake Paul the year before. But this version of Masvidal vs. Diaz wasn’t for the BMF title. After Masvidal made his MMA retirement official, he was on hand at UFC 291 to award the belt to the winner of Poirier vs. Gaethje 2.
Which brings us to Holloway vs. Poirier 3. This will mark only the fourth time the BMF title has been contested, so as far as gimmicks go, this one has yet to be watered down. And judging by the UFC 318 odds here at Bodog Sportsbook, Saturday’s fight could end up being the best thing we’ll see in combat sports all year, no official championship required. Keep hitting that refresh button at Bodog for the latest MMA lines, and we’ll see you in New Orleans.