By the time Alexander Volkanovski walks to the Octagon to face Diego Lopes in the main event at UFC 314 next week, it will have been nearly fourteen months since the Australian last competed.
Volkanovski (26-4 MMA, 13-3 UFC) will take on Lopes (26-6 MMA, 5-1) in an effort to reclaim the UFC featherweight title he lost when he was brutally knocked out by Ilia Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) at UFC 298 in February of last year.
That defeat came less than four months after Volkanovski suffered a head-kick knockout loss to lightweight champion Islam Makhachev (27-1 MMA, 16-1 UFC) at UFC 294. One of Volkanovski's training partners believes the quick turnaround between those two fights played a significant role in how the fight against Topuria unfolded.
"I feel like he just turned too quickly around from the Islam Makhachev fight", UFC lightweight Dan Hooker (24-12 MMA, 14-8 UFC) told Sky Sports News Australia. "I don't think Ilia Topuria did anything that incredible, I feel like he just fought. And I've been there, you know, when I fought Paul Felder, and then I fought Dustin Poirier kind of back to back, and then rushed into the Michael Chandler fight.
"It's not like Michael Chandler did anything that was incredible, it's just (that) you need to learn that as a veteran fighter, and there's only one way to learn it, and that's the hard way, is just the body can only take so much punishment before it needs time to to fully recoup, and especially if you're fighting these five-round fights, you need to be putting a good amount of stretch (between them)
"And it takes longer to recover from a five-round fight, especially what Volkanovski's been going through. Five-round championship training camps and just putting them (together) so consistently because he has been one of the most consistent champions for the UFC, stepping up to the plate, fighting, jumping in on short notice. Like, he just needed a bit more time between these fights to let his body fully recover."
