Destined for greatness, touted as ‘The Great’ former featherweight king, Alexander Volkanovski was on a tear until Islam Makhachev sent him to the shadow realm.
The undisputed UFC lightweight champion, Makhachev, silenced all the naysayers when he head-kicked former pound-for-pound best Volkanovski into oblivion.
Former bantamweight champ Sean O’Malley believes that the fight significantly damaged Volk’s career despite the Russian proving himself to be the best in the business.
Sharing his thoughts on the P4P best, the Montana native appeared on ‘Join the Lobby’ alongside hosts — FaZe Clan’s Swagg and Matcrackz. During this time, the 29-year-old detailed how the Aussie made a grave, far-reaching mistake by taking on the Dagestani wrecking ball on short notice. He said,
“I think he f**ked his career up by taking a short notice against Islam (Makhachev), two weeks, against the pound for pound best guy in the world, got knocked out and then he goes into a fight with Ilia (Topuria) where I feel like that fight plays out a little bit different if he wouldn’t just come and get off a nasty knock out.”
According to ‘Suga,’ Volk made a terrible mistake by choosing to run it back again with Makhachev by taking the fight on short notice. As per O’Malley, Volkanovski agreed to fight the lightweight champ on two weeks’ notice, and that decision forever changed his career.
In fact, following their first bout in February of last year, which surprised the MMA fraternity, Volk, confident in his skill, got into the cage again with Makhachev. Even though their earlier fight was a feast for fans, with the former featherweight champ displaying his might, the later bout was drastically different and forever changed the featherweight landscape.
Despite getting brutally KOed with a sneaky high head kick, Volk came right back to defend his title against Ilia Topuria in February and got slept again.
Currently, ‘The Great’ is taking some time off and recently weighed in on his thoughts about his UFC return, clearing the air around his move to lightweight.
Volkanovski sheds light on his future
The gritty Aussie is currently 1-3 in his last four UFC outings, registering a sole win against former title challenger Yair Rodriguez. As of now, he is in a rut with two back-to-back KO losses against Makhachev and Topuria. However, speculations were at an all-time high, suggesting that the former featherweight was moving up to lightweight.
But having his first loss at featherweight seems to have Volk motivated again. Recently, he indicated that he is likely to fight the winner of Topuria vs Holloway. During an exclusive to Sky Sports NZ, he said,
“Yeah for sure [I’ll face the winner of Topuria vs. Holloway]. That’s exactly what’s happening. I can wait, if I don’t want to wait I can do something else, or just wait… That’s probably what I’m going to do. I could have done a lightweight fight, there’s a lot of exciting fights there.”
In fact, Volk is game about running it back again with Topuria and has also revealed that he is going to hang around, hinting that he had talked to his managers about being the backup fighter for Topuria vs Holloway.
But can he get back to his winning ways despite two vicious KOs? Certainly! After all, they don’t call him ‘The Great’ for nothing!
