Steve Garcia has urged UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski to get back to work.
Garcia (18-5 MMA, 7-2 UFC) will look to continue his meteoric rise up the rankings this Saturday when he faces David Onama (14-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) in the main event of UFC Vegas 110. After racking up six straight stoppage wins at 145 pounds, “Mean Machine” has the division’s elite firmly in his sights, but he’s expressed frustration that Volkanovski (27-4 MMA, 14-3 UFC) hasn’t fought since regaining the featherweight title in April.
"Volk is too busy cooking," Garcia said at the UFC Vegas 110 media day. "He's holding everybody at the top. He just needs to make a decision. Just pick somebody, I don't know. Just pull it out of a hat. Somebody because they're all waiting. Get the division going again. At the top, we can still fight, so that's what we're doing."
Volkanovski outpointed Diego Lopes at UFC 314 to reclaim the title he lost a year earlier, when he was knocked out by Ilia Topuria. With “El Matador” now sitting comfortably atop the lightweight division, the race to determine the next featherweight title challenger is heating up. Movsar Evloev and Lerone Murphy are both in contention, as is Lopes, whose knockout win over Jean Silva at UFC Paris in September put him right back in the mix.
"I think if you're a purist, Mosvar should probably get it," Garcia said. "I don't think people want to see that guy get it. I don't think the UFC wants him to get it. But if you want to do right by somebody in your company, you're probably going to have to, and you're just going to have to trust that the champ does what he does and go out there and win that fight. At that point, I think the champ is the champ for a reason. I think Mosvar is good. I think he's solid, but he's definitely shown chinks in his armor throughout a few different fights."
