Fighters who lose a belt usually say all the right things at the post-fight presser. Very few circle back later and admit the loss actually got inside their head. Alexander Volkanovski did, and MMA Sucka ran a piece this week on the struggle he went through after the Ilia Topuria defeat. I’m not going to fill in the details of his worst nights for him. That’s his story to tell. What I can do is look at where the man is standing right now, because that’s the strongest argument anyone could make for being honest about getting hurt.
Here’s my take. The guy who admits the damage outlasts the guy who sells invincibility. Aura is borrowed money, and eventually somebody calls the loan.
Look Where Volk Is Now
The fighter who supposedly had nothing left is the UFC featherweight champion again. He headlines UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 24 against Movsar Evloev, who is 20-0 and has built that record by making opponents carry his body weight for 15 minutes. A win would move Volkanovski past Jose Aldo for the most featherweight title defenses in UFC history. That is an absurd thing to be chasing after the kind of rough patch he just described in public.
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And he isn’t talking like a man hoping to survive. On the Who The Fook Are These Guys podcast, he laid out the Evloev problem pretty plainly.
“We know what he wants to do,” Volkanovski said. “He wants to grab a hold of me and hold me down, and that ain’t happening.”
Then he went further and called his shot: “I’m not sitting back waiting, I’m going to be forcing a fight, and I think we get a finish, boys. I really do.”
I love it. Calling a stoppage against an undefeated wrestler is how you set yourself up to look silly, and Volk knows that. He did it anyway. A guy still stuck in the fog doesn’t make that call. He takes the safe line about respecting his opponent and hoping for the best.
The Super Fight Pitch Is Pure Volk
On the same podcast he floated a lightweight title fight with Justin Gaethje, built as a farewell for both of them. MMA Junkie described it as a double retirement champ-vs-champ pitch, which is a sentence that should make every UFC accountant sit up straight.
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“Let’s do a super fight, lightweight title on the line and then we can both see everyone off with a crazy super fight,” Volkanovski said. He added that after that, the UFC can “let the divisions sort themselves out.”
The skeptics have a fair point on paper. Volkanovski is 0-2 in title fights at 155 against Islam Makhachev. The first one was competitive. The second one, taken on short notice, ended early. Arman Tsarukyan is sitting there after a first-round knockout of Mauricio Ruffy, and BMF champ Charles Oliveira fights Diego Lopes on Dec. 12 with the belt in his sights. A featherweight cutting the line is exactly the kind of thing that gets lightweight contenders tweeting in all caps.
I still want it. I’m a sucker for big-money crossover fights, and two veterans with nothing left to prove going out together on a title fight is about as fun as matchmaking gets. Gaethje is the one who reportedly shrugged at the idea of rematches, according to Volk, so the pitch actually lines up with what the champ wants. The divisions will still be there in 2027. Tsarukyan isn’t going anywhere.
Now It’s Topuria’s Turn
This is the part that makes the whole Volkanovski arc hit harder. Topuria, the man who beat him, ran into Gaethje at UFC White House in June and got finished violently. The aura that Volkanovski had to recover from is now the thing Topuria has to rebuild.
Paddy Pimblett already smells blood. Speaking with AllOutFighting, he said, “He’s never lost before, so I don’t think he’ll ever be the same when he comes back.” He followed that with: “his whole aura was unbeatable and this and that. Now he’s being beat. That’s in his head.”
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Paddy saying Paddy things doesn’t make it true, and he has a vested interest in Topuria looking shaky. But he put his finger on the exact thing Volkanovski just spent months working through out loud. Topuria built his brand on looking untouchable. Volk built his on showing up, losing sometimes, and coming back. One of those plans holds up better after a knockout.
Topuria still has the people, by the way. On Saturday he posed for a photo with a fan who has his face tattooed on his body, so nobody needs to hold a candlelight vigil for his marketability. The question for him is whether he can talk about the loss as plainly as Volkanovski did, or whether he spends the next year pretending it never happened.
Volkanovski already answered that for himself. On Oct. 24 in Abu Dhabi, he tries to back it up against a man who has never lost, and if he gets the finish he promised, the Gaethje pitch stops sounding like podcast talk.
