What Brazilian Jiu Jitsu belt is Max Holloway?

The short answer

This guide cannot give you a verified belt colour for Max Holloway. The sources it relies on mention him only as the man Ilia Topuria knocked out in the third round at UFC 308 on 26 October 2024. They say nothing about his grappling rank, and a belt colour guessed from reputation would be worse than no answer.

If you need the rank for a caption, a bet or an argument, take it from Holloway’s own gym, his coach or the organisation that registered the promotion, not from a search snippet.

When a fighter’s belt rank is a useful question

A belt tells you how a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor judged a person’s grappling. It is conferred by a coach, not earned automatically by winning fights. Rafael dos Anjos is a black belt under Aldo “Caveirinha” Januário. Vitor Belfort received his black belt from Carlson Gracie, having previously won blue belt titles at the Brazilian National Jiu-Jitsu Championships.

The question is most useful when you are asking about a fighter’s ground game. A black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is evidence of a grappling background, and dos Anjos is described as a high-level black belt in addition to his striking.

The question is less useful when it is used as a stand-in for fighting ability overall. A mixed martial arts career is judged by results in a cage, under rules that allow strikes. A belt is judged by an instructor, mostly by performance in the gi and no-gi grappling that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu schools teach. The two overlap but do not measure the same thing.

It also does not apply to every well-known fighter. Many were never publicly graded, and a missing rank is not the same as a low one.

What people get wrong

Assuming a striker has no belt, or a high one

Holloway is mentioned here in the context of a boxing exchange. Topuria’s boxing is described as marked by precise shot selection, fluid combinations and remarkable power, shown in his knockouts of Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira. A fight that ends on the feet tells you nothing about anyone’s belt, so you cannot work backwards from it.

Crediting a fighter with someone else’s rank

Belts attach to the individual. José Aldo’s wife, Vivianne Perreira, holds a purple belt in jiu-jitsu and has fought twice professionally in Muay Thai. That is her rank, not his, and it is the kind of detail that gets copied into the wrong biography.

Treating tournament medals as belt rank

Competition results and promotions are separate things. Ilia Topuria won a silver medal in the juniors category at the IBJJF European Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament in 2014. He was reported as becoming the first Georgian black belt in the sport in May 2018. The medal and the belt came years apart, and one did not simply produce the other.

Confusing a name with a record

A fighter can be famous for knockouts, titles and a long reign without any public grading being recorded. Fame is not a source. Neither is a list of finishes: dos Anjos has submission wins on his record, and Belfort won a fight by armbar, but a submission in the cage still does not tell you what colour of belt someone wears.

How to check a belt rank

Work from the person who gave the grade, then move outward.

1. Find the instructor or academy. A belt is conferred by a coach, so the coach or the school is the primary source. Examples above name the coach in each case.
2. Look for a statement from the fighter or the academy itself, such as a post or a photograph of a promotion, not a third-party fan page.
3. Check whether a federation has recorded the grade. If a source gives a rank without naming who awarded it, treat it as unconfirmed.
4. If you cannot find any of these, say the rank is not publicly confirmed. Do not fill the gap with a colour.

If your real interest is the system rather than one fighter, the belt system explained covers what each colour represents. If you are wondering how your own grading compares, how to measure progress is a better yardstick than any fighter’s rank, and how long a blue belt takes gives you a realistic first target.