Alexander Volkov asked Dana White a direct question after beating Rizvan Kuniev at UFC 333. White gave him a shrug in sentence form.
Volkov took a unanimous decision over Kuniev on Saturday’s main card, with scores of 29-28, 30-27 and 30-27. Then he grabbed his Octagon interview with Daniel Cormier and pointed it straight at the boss.
“I have a question for Dana White,” Volkov said. “I’m just starting my professional career. I have about 20 professional fights in the UFC. What should I do to get a title shot? Answer me, please.”
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The answer came at the post-fight press conference, when a reporter asked White if Volkov would get the next heavyweight title shot. “Yeah, look, he had a good performance tonight,” White said. “We’ll see. We’ll see what happens next.”
That’s the whole thing. No date, no opponent, no promise.
The press conference he crashed
This was the second time in three days Volkov put the question to White in public. On Thursday, the 6-foot-7 Russian showed up in the audience at the UFC 333 pre-fight press conference, a presser he wasn’t on, and asked White from the floor what it takes to earn a shot at the belt. White looked confused, and the clip went viral because it seemed like he didn’t recognize one of his own top heavyweights.
White insisted after the event that he knew exactly who it was. He said Alexander Volkanovski told him three times, and that he figured Volkov was running some kind of bit.
“I thought it was like a schtick he was doing, and I was waiting for the punchline, and it never came,” White said, adding that only the co-main and main event fighters were on the dais and he assumed Volkov just wanted his moment to ask for the title shot.
So the punchline was the question. Fair enough.
Where Volkov stands
The Kuniev win makes it three straight for the 37-year-old and seven of his last eight. His only loss since 2022 was the split-hair decision against Ciryl Gane at UFC 310 in December 2024, a result plenty of people still argue about. Gane went on to win the heavyweight title and defends it against Josh Hokit at UFC 334 on November 14.
Volkov’s problem is the line in front of him. Tom Aspinall vacated his belt after Gane poked him in both eyes and their UFC 321 fight ended in a no-contest last October. Bloody Elbow reports Aspinall will almost certainly get an immediate shot at the Gane vs. Hokit winner if he’s cleared to return in the first half of 2027.
Then there’s UFC 335, where Sergei Pavlovich fights Alex Pereira. Heavy noted the winner of that one could get the next crack instead of Volkov.
I like that Volkov asked the question twice, out loud, with no emoji and no cryptic Instagram post. He’s 7-1 in his last eight, and the one loss came against the current champ in a fight he arguably won. If Aspinall is healthy, fine, he never lost the belt in the cage. But if Pereira walks out of UFC 335 and gets waved past a guy who has been grinding in this division for about 20 UFC fights, Volkov should crash every press conference through Christmas. Gane and Hokit go on November 14, and Volkov will be watching from somewhere with a microphone nearby.
