Issue 182

September 2019

UFC featherweight Alexander Volkanovski is one of a pack of gifted southern hemisphere fighters. He believes that, no matter what happens, the belt will soon be heading Down Under.

Alexander Volkanovski has made a big impact since joining the UFC in 2016 and with seven straight wins in the Octagon already under his belt, he’s quickly risen to the number-one ranking in the UFC’s featherweight division. The Australian isn’t short of company when it comes to challenging for the 145-pound title, but with scalps of Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes already on his record, he’s proven that he belongs up there with the best in the world.

With the likes of Robert Whittaker, Israel Adesanya, Jimmy Crute and Dan Hooker all flying the flags of Australia and New Zealand high in the promotion in recent years, Volkanovski is at the forefront of a generation of fighters from the southern hemisphere making big waves on the world stage. Taking on experienced and wily veterans like Aldo, Mendes and Darren Elkins has been the downfall of many a prospect at 145 pounds, but Volkanovski passed all three of those tests with flying colors in the last 18 months.

Riding high off the back of a career-defining win over Aldo at UFC 237 in May, Volkanovski spoke exclusively to Fighters Only to recall the emotions he felt going into enemy territory in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Many in the MMA community doubted whether the Australian could deal with the former featherweight king in his own backyard, but these doubts never crossed the mind of the man from New South Wales.

“I wasn’t nervous and I told people before that I wouldn’t be,” Volkanovski recalled. “Throughout the build-up, people were saying to me ‘How are you going to feel fighting such a legend? How are you going to cope with the crowd in Brazil?’ For me, it was never a big deal. The truth of the matter is that I’m just really good at these situations. I don’t get nervous and I just play what is in front of me.

“Walking to the cage I normally get a few butterflies, but that’s to be expected anyway. Once I’m in that cage I’m only worried about what I’m doing and I don’t think about anything else other than imposing my will. I just get in the zone. Even when Aldo walked in, I just saw him as another body. For me, it was just like any other fight. I just don’t think too much about my opponents. I don’t overthink it.”

After putting Aldo to the sword for the best part of three rounds, Volkanovski picked up a unanimous decision victory winning all three rounds on all three judges' scorecards. Toppling a legend of the sport on foreign soil should have been the hardest part of the Australian’s week, but little did he know the issues he would face on the way back home to Windang.

The scary events that followed in the next 48 hours will forever remain in Volkanovski’s mind and they put a somewhat sour ending on the best fight week of his career.

“I really don’t know why it happened if I’m totally honest,” Volkanovski said with a sigh. “Maybe it was because my immune system was down or something because of the weight cut, I don’t know, but my left leg, down near the ankle at the front of the shin, it felt tender immediately after the fight, but in the morning it swelled up a lot. At the beginning, I just thought it was tender because I had been kicking with it, but it just kept getting more and more tender and sorer as time went on.

“The day after it did start going red and I told my coach, but we didn’t really think anything of it and we just assumed it was part of the healing process,” he continued. “It wasn’t until the airport where I started feeling something was happening, but even then I thought it was just my body trying to hold onto water. I thought if I drank some more water I would feel better, but it just got worse.”

It was this point in time that Volkanovski and his team made a decision that ultimately saved his leg. Suffering from a bacterial blood infection, The Australian was in dire need of medical attention, and thankfully at an airport in Chile they decided to seek help from a doctor rather than board the next connecting flight to New Zealand.

“The pain just kept coming and going and after a few short flights the pain started to get really bad,” Volkanovski said. “I had this fever and a temperature of over 40 degrees Celsius. I was delirious at that stage and I really needed a doctor. My team were telling me that if we did that, we couldn’t get the next flight, but all I could think about was getting myself to a doctor because I knew I needed help. Luckily, they did because if I would’ve got that next flight it would’ve been really bad news.”

At Santiago de Chile airport, Volkanovski was immediately treated by doctors and then taken to a nearby hospital. The featherweight contender ended up staying in Chile for an extended period before being allowed to travel home and it wasn’t a comfortable experience by any stretch of the imagination.

“The treatment I received was really good, but it sucked being there,” Volkanovski said. “At the airport, they had a little doctors’ spot and they gave me some painkillers to get my temperature down. The doctors there said that if I didn’t get to hospital within 48 hours I was going to be in a right mess. The whole thing dragged out for five or six days before I felt right.

“It was lucky I had my coach Joe Lopez there with me and he was there with me the whole time,” he added. “Whilst I was there, I just had to stay in bed with my leg elevated, but having my legs elevated started pushing my stomach into my lungs so I found it hard breathing. I had to do all these stomach exercises then to get my breathing back to normal before I could get on the plane. It was a different experience that’s for sure. One that I don’t want to be repeating any time soon.”

Just days after Volkanovski put himself at the front of the queue to be the next challenger for the UFC featherweight title, it was announced that Frankie Edgar would fight the champion Max Holloway at UFC 240 in August.

Having defeated Aldo and then gone through hell getting back from Brazil, it was a bitter pill for Volkanovski to swallow, but despite the disappointment, it didn’t take him long to figure out a way to keep himself in the title talk.

“Obviously, I wasn’t best pleased when I first heard about it,” Volkanovski said. “I thought I’d really earned it, but the more I looked at it and talked it through with my coaches, it became clearer to me that the decision was probably made before I even fought. The UFC has been wanting to make that fight happen for a while now, so I just made it perfectly clear to them that I want to be next in line after that.

“I’m going to be ringside for UFC 240 and they [the UFC] said they are more than happy to fly me over,” he said. “I’m going to be ready to step in if one of the guys can’t fight for whatever reason. The UFC hasn’t officially said that I’m an official replacement, but I’ll be there and I’ll be on weight. I guess I didn’t really give them a chance to ask me. I just told them.”

Having already been denied the title shot once, Volkanovski isn’t taking anything for granted. Despite having beaten the longest reigning featherweight champion of all time and another title contender in Mendes on his recent run, Volkanovski now understands that nothing is guaranteed in the UFC regardless of your resume. It’s a realization that has just further made him want to take matters into his own hands and make his title shot credentials undeniable.

“I don’t trust that I’m definitely going to get the next shot, but I know that eventually, they aren’t going to be able to deny me,” Volkanovski said. “I’m not going to let opportunities slip away from me so I’m going to be in a position to answer the call whenever it comes. If someone else is ready and I’m not, then I could really slip back in the pecking order. I still believe I’m next, but I’m not going to wait around and see. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that it’s me next whenever that opportunity comes knocking.”

For the time being at least, it looks like Volkanovski will have to sit and watch Holloway and Edgar go to war at UFC 240. It’s a fight that the UFC previously booked back in 2017 and 2018, but with injuries to both fighters on separate occasions, the fight has never come to fruition. Volkanovski wasn’t willing to make a prediction though he does believe Edgar has a good chance.

“Frankie and Max is a really tough fight to call,” Volkanovski said. “If you look at what both have been doing recently on paper it looks like it should be a fight that Max wins, but you just never know, man. When Frankie is at his best, he’s a tough fight for anyone and I think the places where he’s good, Max hasn’t really been tested in.

“That said, Frankie isn’t exactly getting any younger,” he continued. “We will see. If Frankie is game then it’s going to be a hell of a fight. Both guys have great cardio and Frankie has great wrestling. I could see it going the distance. If I was a betting man, I’d put my money on Max, but Frankie definitely has the tools to give him issues.”

Should the champion retain, Volkanovski believes he will give Holloway a lot to think about. Fighting out of Freestyle Fighting Gym, the Australian believes he’s crafted a style that is not just dangerous for the champion, but any other fighter in the division.

“Just think about it right. If Frankie is going to give Max problems, then I’m going to give him some serious problems,” Volkanovski said. “I know I can match anything that Frankie can bring to the table, but in addition to that, I also have power. Stylistically I’m just a bad match-up for everyone because I’m so well-rounded. If people think they can out-strike me, then more often than not I out-strike them. If they think they can out-grapple me, then I just out-grapple them. The difference is most guys rely on one thing whereas I know I can beat the best doing their best. I’ve got so many tools I can utilize and I mix it up whenever I want.”

Though he’s going to make sure he’s ready to go in August if required, Volkanovski has his eyes on the pay-per-view in Australia in November. With Adesanya expected to take on Whittaker in the main event, Volkanovski believes him fighting for the UFC featherweight title before that would be the perfect co-headliner.

“I really want to fight on that Aussie card at the end of the year,” Volkanovski said. “Even if I do have to step in and fight on short notice, I’ll be more than happy to get straight back into camp and fight again on that card. That’s the dream. To co-main event that card with Israel [Adesanya] fighting in the headliner. I’d love to defend the belt for the first time there, but I’m equally ready to wait my turn and face the winner of Max and Frankie then as well. All I care about is ending the year with that belt.”

The featherweight division isn’t short of new talent and Volkanovski is just one of many looking to make an impact on the title picture. The Australian thinks the new breed coming through has taken elements from the older fighters in the division and fine-tuned their styles to take them out. It’s a process that Volkanovski believes will ultimately happen to him as well one day, but he’s not afraid of taking on some of the other younger up-and-coming fighters when that time comes.

“It’s such a stacked division and it goes very deep,” Volkanovski said. “The game is always evolving. Right now, I don’t believe anyone is going to give me problems, but in a couple of years, we don’t know what’s coming. I’m all about styles and fight IQ. What you saw with me and Aldo wasn’t him being off, it was things that we planned for to shut him down. We knew how to break him down because we’ve studied him for years and planned how to beat him. In years to come, I’ve no doubt that’s exactly what will eventually happen to me.

“A lot of people are throwing guys like Zabit [Magomedsharipov], Renato Moicano, Mirsad Bektic, these are the guys most thought of to be the best of the prospects and they’re all very well rounded,” he continued. “Everyone just loves to talk up Zabit, but I’m a bad matchup for him; what he does just wouldn’t work on me. It doesn’t matter if it’s him or anyone else. I have all of the answers and I feel very comfortable in there. I’m confident I’m going to dominate this division for a long time.”