UFC superstar Max Holloway wants to break his own striking record by throwing 900 punches when he fights Saturday

• Max Holloway bludgeoned Calvin Kattar so ruthlessly UFC boss Dana White thought he might die.
• Superstar featherweight Holloway fights Saturday and warned Yair Rodriguez he wants to improve.

UFC superstar Max Holloway wants to break his own striking record Saturday when he fights Yair Rodriguez at the Fight Night 197 event inside the Apex in Las Vegas.

Holloway gave his most-recent opponent Calvin Kattar a bludgeoning for the ages when the featherweights fought on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi in January.

In the five-round war, Holloway hit Kattar with an absurd 447 strikes from 746 attempts for a 60% accuracy rate. All but two of those shots were deemed by stats trackers to be significant.

According to the UFC commentator Jon Anik, Holloway set eight records with his sublime performance against Kattar.

These included:

• Most significant strikes landed: 445 (previously 290)
• Most significant attempts: 744 (previously 515)
• Most distance strikes landed: 439 (previously 281)
• Most significant head strikes landed: 274 (previously 244)
• Most significant body strikes landed: 117 (previously 92)
• Most significant strikes landed in a round: 141 (previously 134)
• Most strikes landed in total: 447 (previously 361)
• Most strikes attempted in total: 746 (previously 541)

The performance was so ruthless and so complete that the UFC boss Dana White showed concern at the time that Kattar might die, and ordered the Boston fighter to go to hospital.

"This reminds me of the kind of fight where the fight's over … he fucking dies," White said during the bout.

The 33-year-old was hit with a six-month medical suspension from fighting after suffering one of the most brutal beatings in UFC history.

Holloway wants to improve for his weekend fight

One of the best featherweight fighters of all time, Holloway has wins over Charles Oliveira, Jose Aldo (twice), and Brian Ortega.

After suffering closely-fought back-to-back losses to Alexander Volkanovski in UFC title fights, Holloway rebounded with the record-shattering win over Kattar.

But he wants to improve on those metrics against Rodriguez, which is the main event of the UFC's behind-closed-doors show in Vegas this weekend.

"I threw like 790 punches or something" against Kattar, Holloway told ESPN MMA this week. "If we can get to like 900, that would be great for this one.

"Just trying to raise the bar."

The UFC event is an 11-bout card that will be broadcast on ESPN+.