Sleep specialists, and 4 a.m. fights: How fighters manage rest overseas

WHEN MAX HOLLOWAY walks to the Octagon to face Ilia Topuria at UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, it will be shortly after midnight local time on Sunday. However, back in his hometown of Waianae in Hawai’i, it will be Saturday, 10 a.m. on the island of Oahu. It’s a stark contrast in time for Holloway, but it has become par for the course in the career of the widely popular MMA fighter looking to reclaim the featherweight title.

For much of the world, being fully functional at work without a good night of rest presents a significant obstacle. Fortunately, most don’t have to worry about being punched in the face. However, for fighters operating without proper sleep, the margin for error at their place of employment is microscopic and can be the difference between a victory and waking up on the canvas. Few navigate these less-than-optimal traveling situations as well as Holloway.

“I live in the middle of the sea,” Holloway said in an interview with the UFC’s Megan Olivi as he prepared to compete in the UAE for the third time. “No matter what way I go, it’s a long way.”

There’s no such thing as a home game for Holloway. He hasn’t fought in Hawaii since his fourth professional fight in 2011. Since then, the current BMF champion has competed on the road in the UFC for 29 professional fights across eight time zones.

Despite always having to adjust his body to a dramatically different time zone, Holloway has amassed a remarkable record of 9-1 in fights outside of the United States, the best for any American fighter in the UFC, according to ESPN Research. He was seemingly unaffected by the 18-hour time difference when he knocked out Chan Sung Jung, in Singapore last year, and the 14-hour difference the last time he fought in Abu Dhabi, in 2021, didn’t prevent him from landing a UFC-record 445 significant strikes against Calvin Kattar.

His nickname is “Blessed,” but maybe it should be “The Road Warrior” for his ability to fight anywhere at any time and operate in peak condition.

Is it simply that, as a Hawaiian, Holloway understands that every fight will be at an odd hour?

“It’s a little bit of that,” his manager, Tim Simpson, told ESPN. “He’s just good. Even at a time zone or sleep disadvantage, his skill and preparation level may be better than everyone else’s. But people like Max who are accustomed to travel aren’t going to be thrown off by it, either.”

While many fans may be aware of the constant challenge of a weight cut, the unseen challenger known as sleep deprivation is arguably the biggest hurdle to overcome for a traveling fighter. Fortunately for Holloway, he has been unfazed by long flights, jet lag and competing at hours where he would usually be asleep. Where he has thrived, many others have struggled with establishing a sleep schedule in a different time zone.

“During fight week, they are always asking me how I get used to the time zone and I’m like, ‘Brother, I’m making a lot of money,'” Holloway said. “There’s a lot of money riding on this. I have no problem sleeping on a plane. I force myself to sleep. It’s only a short sacrifice for a little time.”

Can it all be so simple?

Obviously, not everyone is Holloway.

UFC 304 IN Manchester, England, was supposed to be a home game for the British fighters appearing on the card. But with the UFC focusing on accommodating a largely U.S.-based pay-per-view audience, the local start time was 11 p.m. for the prelims and the main card began at 3 a.m. The card would feel like anything but a homecoming for the likes of Paddy Pimblett, Molly McCann, Arnold Allen, interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall and the now-former welterweight champion Leon Edwards.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” Pimblett told ESPN ahead of his fight with King Green. “It gave all of these American fighters an advantage over us. Our fans have to stay up every weekend until 5 or 6 in the morning just to watch a fight card. Just think, we have to fight at that hour.”

The British fighters were desperate to find ways to adjust to fighting in the middle of the night. Pimblett would train late at night and rely on adrenaline to combat feeling tired. Allen revealed staying up late and sleeping in didn’t work in the days leading up to the fight and he remained awake from Friday morning after making weight until Sunday evening. Aspinall even considered taking the final four weeks of his training camp to Las Vegas in order to acclimate but toughed it out at home in the greater Manchester area.

Pimblett, Aspinall and Allen all managed to leave UFC 304 with a victory. In the case of Pimblett, his victory snapped a streak of seven straight fights at the event that were determined by the judges’ scorecards. The lack of excitement drew the ire of UFC CEO Dana White. He vowed to never again increase the performance bonuses (from $50,000 to $100,000) for fighters on a whim as he did for UFC 304 and wasn’t buying the unusual start times as an excuse.

“Who gives a f—?” White said in response to fights happening at 3 a.m. local time during a postfight interview. “Seven straight f—ing decisions. The $100,000 was a real big f—ing, ‘Woohoo. Let’s get it, boys.’ F— that s—. Never again.”

One fighter not in line for the $100,000 performance bonus that night was Edwards, in a main event that started at nearly 6 a.m. local and “wasn’t a barn burner,” according to White.

Edwards was in a tough spot when the opportunity to defend his championship against Belal Muhammad at Co-op Live, the arena an hour from where he lived, was presented to him. He had struggled to acclimate to unfavorable conditions in previous fights but had pushed through. At UFC 278 in Salt Lake City in 2022, Edwards battled the elevation and the seven-hour time difference. The combination of reduced oxygen and making his ring walk an hour before the sun rose back in Birmingham manifested in a lethargic performance that was salvaged by a Hail Mary head kick knockout of Kamaru Usman in the final round to capture the title.

The opportunity to compete as a champion in front of his family and friends was too good to pass up. Edwards accepted the fight against Muhammad, knowing he was at a disadvantage. Edwards employed a sleep specialist to get his body to adjust to fighting at the odd hour, but he struggled mightily and it showed in his unanimous decision loss.

“It sucked,” said Simpson, who also manages Edwards, Israel Adesanya, Jack Della Maddalena, Jiří Procházka and several other fighters based outside the United States. “Two weeks ahead of the fight, he was doing all of the things to adjust, but I could see it was taking a massive toll on his body. It was just unnatural for him. The body doesn’t want to sleep all day and be awake at night. He wasn’t sleeping enough, and it was an absolutely awful performance.

“I don’t think we’ll ever do that again.”

Muhammad, who traversed six time zones from Chicago to Manchester for the fight, isn’t buying any of it.

“He’s just making excuses,” Muhammad told ESPN, pointing out that Pimblett, Aspinall and Allen all managed to win in similar conditions. “A lot of fighters had to adjust. I think he was embarrassed by his performance and is grasping at straws to find an excuse. It was a lot harder for us traveling out of America. We had to make our adjustments to the time zone as well.

“The greats don’t make excuses; they fix whatever the problem is.”

FIXING THE PROBLEM of sleep deprivation for traveling fighters has proved to be extraordinarily complicated, and the UFC offers aid to fighters competing internationally. However, it’s up to the fighters and their teams to heed the advice.

“Sleep is essential to performance,” Dr. Duncan French, senior vice president of the UFC Performance Institute, told ESPN.

His team offers assistance from the moment fights are booked to give fighters tools to help them perform at their peak. This includes supplementation and nutrition strategies that help with weight-cutting, breathing activations, cold-water immersions and blue-light exposure to induce sleep and assist with establishing healthy sleep patterns. Ultimately, the UFC wants fighters to perform to the best of their abilities, even in the most challenging conditions. And it all starts with establishing a healthy sleep pattern.

“Literature shows that sleep deprivation results in increased injury rates and significantly reduced cognitive function, visual acuity and reaction time,” French continued. “Compromised or shortened sleep can be detrimental to proper weight-cutting and overall performance in competition.”

While the UFC does provide assistance, coaches are often on the frontline to properly prepare their fighters.

“I try to get to the international location at least 10 days early,” Xtreme Couture head coach Eric Nicksick told ESPN about preparing for the time zone adjustment. Along with sleep adjustment, Nicksick is tasked with finding the right foods in these foreign locations to ensure a proper weight cut and establishing a training schedule that is close to the time his fighters are scheduled to compete. “One day is sleeping to acclimate and the rest of the schedule before fight week is getting your body right and adjusting your weight cut due to the long flight. It’s a process.”

No matter how well-prepared Nicksick thinks his fighters are, complications can still crop up on the day of the fight.

“When Francis Ngannou was fighting Anthony Joshua [in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia], it was around 3 in the morning,” Nicksick said of the moments before Ngannou stepped inside a boxing ring with the Olympic gold medalist and former unified heavyweight champion. Ngannou would lose by second-round knockout. “It was hard for all of us to get up for that moment. I remember Francis looking at me in the locker room and he said, ‘Damn, Bubba, I’m tired.'”

While some fighters need the assistance of their coaches or the Performance Institute, others figure it out on their own.

Per ESPN Research, Neil Magny is the most traveled American fighter in UFC history. Fourteen of Magny’s 33 UFC fights have occurred in another country. But where Magny differs from other UFC fighters is that his military background has played a significant role in properly managing his sleep.

“I joined the Army right out of high school, so I’ve always been on the go,” said Magny, who has a record of 8-6 in fights outside of the U.S. “There were times I’d have missions all day and if there was a small window where I could rest, I’d take full advantage of it. I would just cross my arms and sleep in the sand, the backseat of a Hummer or in the grass. So, when it comes to traveling for fights, it’s the same concept where I’ll get my rest whenever I can.”

Magny, 37, has figured out how to navigate time zones, although it hasn’t always yielded positive results. But for those without military backgrounds, figuring out how to adjust has also been a bit of trial and error.

“When you’re young, you can get away with not sleeping, not eating properly and not training if you’re tired,” Bellator lightweight AJ McKee told ESPN. The 29-year-old former featherweight champion has competed five times outside the United States and twice in Hawai’i. Over the years, he has listened to his body, remained disciplined and made lifestyle adjustments to acclimate to whatever time zone he is in. However, he turned in a subpar performance against Paul Hughes at PFL Super Fights in Abu Dhabi last weekend, dropping a decision despite being the betting favorite.

“It’s weird going into that cage because you’re fighting for your life, but it’s a very strategic game,” McKee said of the significance of being well-rested to perform at the highest level mentally. “You have to be able to make the right adjustments at the necessary times. There’s a lot of mental warfare in there, whether people see it or not.”

With the help and experience of his father, retired MMA fighter Antonio, McKee has managed to navigate the complicated issue without outside assistance. The elder McKee’s 38-fight MMA career took him across multiple time zones from Russia to Japan and provided a blueprint for his son’s sleep and training schedule. But it didn’t lead to the desired outcome in Abu Dhabi, McKee’s first loss fighting outside of the U.S.

WHILE AMERICAN FIGHTERS have had to journey to other countries, foreign fighters have routinely been forced to make the biggest adjustment to the UFC’s U.S.-heavy schedule.

“It really sucks because international fighters are almost always fighting on an American schedule,” retired Australian mixed martial artist Megan Anderson told ESPN. Anderson had dealt with her fair share of issues competing in American-based promotions Invicta and the UFC, noting that the most difficult fight preparations of her career were caused by international travel and time zone adjustment. “It’s an unfortunate part of the game, but you have to accept it as something you have to deal with if you want to fight in the UFC.”

Holloway’s opponent at UFC 308, Topuria, will only sacrifice two hours when competing in Abu Dhabi. However, when the Spaniard challenged Alexander Volkanovski for the featherweight championship in February in Anaheim, California, he fought at roughly 5:30 a.m. in his home time zone. And he still managed to be sharp enough to flatten Volkanovski in the second round to become champion.

“When you are accustomed to the travel and the process, you know what it feels like to come to a fight week in a different time zone,” Simpson said. He pointed out that Jack Della Maddalena, a welterweight from Perth, Australia, has only fought in his home country once in seven fights since joining the UFC in 2021.

The same can be said for Volkanovski and Adesanya, who have fought the majority of their UFC tenure stateside. Rather than use it as an excuse, they understand what comes with the territory and acclimate accordingly. For Adesanya, that meant using a pair of boxing gloves as makeshift pillows to get a few winks in the locker room after getting his hands wrapped to fight Paulo Costa in Abu Dhabi in 2020. The nap may have helped him finish Costa in the second round to retain his middleweight title.

“Some fighters are Type A and need to be in control of everything, while some fighters — and I say this with love — are brilliant idiots,” said Simpson. “They are so good athletically at what they do and have the ability not to overthink things.”

The reality is that every fighter is different. Some adjust on their own while others struggle with the challenge of obtaining proper sleep, even with the help of sleep specialists. But it is a necessary evil if you want to compete in a sport that has a global footprint. Some manage in those unique circumstances and others have yet to master the art of sleeping in different time zones.

And then there is Holloway.

“Max is a different breed,” said Anderson, astonished with how the Hawaiian has never appeared to be remotely compromised. “It will be a sad day when he decides to hang up the gloves because I don’t think we’ll ever see anybody like him again.”

As Holloway always says: “It is what it is.”