Alexander Volkanovski Calls Out Dana White for Not Getting Short Notice Fight Against Islam Makhachev

Former featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski had the rare opportunity to fight for the lightweight title thrice as Arman Tsarukyan pulled out of his UFC 311 match at the 11th hour. However, the UFC decided to choose #10 ranked Renato Moicano to take his place on the card, which seems to have irked Volk.

He took to X to express his disappointment at not being considered for the job by Dana White.

Volk had earlier faced Makhachev in a rematch at UFC 294 on 11 days notice after former champion Charles Oliveira had pulled out due to an injury sustained while training. However, this decision turned out to be arguably the most disastrous decision of his career. Islam came far more prepared and ensured that the bout never went beyond the first round, knocking him out with a head kick at 3 minutes and 6 seconds to retain the title.

After that, Volk went back to the featherweight division and tried to defend his 145 lbs title against Ilia Topuria at UFC 298. However, the once-dominant champion suddenly looked a lot more vulnerable.

Topuria, young and hungry, looking for his first title, stung Volk with a right-arm jab in the second round, handing the champion his second consecutive KO loss. Volk has largely been out of favor ever since and is waiting for a title shot in a rematch against the featherweight champion.

In the meantime, as this situation unfolded on social media, Moicano and Makhachev got into an intense staredown at the UFC 311 face-off.

Moicano gets his wish

Interestingly, ahead of his scheduled bout with Beneil Dariush, Moicano had asserted that not only was he going to dominate his opponent, but once he was done, he would call out whoever was the champion of the division.

He could have wished for a million dollars and his luck might have just granted him that as well. Million dollars have fewer ways of hurting a person than the UFC lightweight champion, after all. However, Moicano doesn’t care.

Because even if things had gone according to his original plan, there wasn’t much of a chance that either Islam or Arman would have accepted his challenge for the title.

Fighting Makhachev on a day’s notice is a dangerous prospect but Moicano doesn’t want to hand Islam a psychological advantage. So, following the faceoff, he turned to the camera and let his feelings known.

“I don’t give a f***. I cannot afford to f*****g lose. It doesn’t matter if it’s the champion or not, tomorrow I’m winning.”

Whether or not it works out for Moicano on Saturday night, this is beginning to look like a really fun fight to watch.