Alexander Volkov walked into the UFC 333 press conference through the regular gates like a guy with a ticket, asked Dana White what a heavyweight has to do to get a title shot, and got a blank stare. One win and nearly a week later, he still doesn’t have an answer. So he’s decided the belt can stop telling him who he is.
He’s right. And the UFC should be a little embarrassed that a 38-year-old with 20 fights in the promotion had to sneak into his own fight week to get noticed.
Start with the presser. Volkov told Ariel Helwani on Wednesday that he wasn’t booked for it, and that this wasn’t new. “I saw they didn’t have me on the press conference again, the same as the last three fights. I don’t know why,” he said. So he went in as a fan. White appeared not to recognize him, and featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski, sitting to White’s right, tried to help his boss out of the jam. The clip went viral, which is more promotion than the company has given Volkov in a while.
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His read on it was dry enough to frame. “I bet every time he hears my name, he thinks they’re talking about Alexander Volkanovski,” he said.
Then came the actual fight. Volkov beat Rizvan Kuniev by unanimous decision on Oct. 24 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. That’s three straight wins and one loss in his last eight. MMA Mania’s Meta Rankings bumped him two spots to No. 2 at heavyweight, past Alex Pereira. At the post-fight press conference, White stayed noncommittal anyway.
The belt doesn’t get to grade him
“This belt doesn’t define me. I’m still a champion by myself,” Volkov said on the Helwani show. Then he flipped it around. “Fighter who has the belt, he defines what the belt means.”
When most contenders say the title doesn’t matter, you can hear the sulk underneath. Volkov sounds like a guy reading the matchmaking sheet out loud. Tom Aspinall vacated the championship, Ciryl Gane is the new champion, and Gane’s first defense is against Josh Hokit at UFC 334 on Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden. Volkov’s summary of that booking: “He fights maybe a grand total of a fight and a half in the organization, and they give him a title shot.”
Add the Gane problem. Volkov already fought him, and MMA Mania wrote this week that most fans believe Volkov won that one despite what it called “wacky scorecards.” So the man who arguably beat the champ is ranked No. 2 and waiting, while the guy he’s been trading insults with gets the shot.
That feud has some heat now. Volkov joked earlier this month about how kind it was of the UFC to give someone with a “mental illness” a title shot. Hokit fired back on social media, called him boring and said Volkov should have been released along with Jailton Almeida. Volkov’s response was short. “He’s an adult. He thinks like an elementary school kid. That’s it.”
The knock is real, and he knows it
The fair criticism is the finishes. Volkov hasn’t stopped anybody since he Ezekiel-choked Tai Tuivasa in Round 2 back in September 2023. In a title picture that rewards noise, three years of decisions don’t move pay-per-views, and Volkov doesn’t pretend otherwise. He frames the run as proof of who he’s been fighting, and he’s fine if that means competitive, grinding nights.
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What I like is that he isn’t whining about it. “I’m never disappointed with something anymore. I’m too old for that,” he said. He said he can’t go around crying that he deserves it, and that the only thing he can do is ask the bosses what they want from him. “Just give me things I should do, because I did a lot.”
That’s a fighter answering a question straight, which is rarer in this sport than a clean heavyweight weight cut. He also took a shot without naming anyone. “I respect everybody. I fight clean,” he said, adding that he’s been a clean athlete his whole life.
You can disagree with how he wins. You can’t really argue that the No. 2 heavyweight in the world, on a three-fight streak, should be asking the CEO for directions from the cheap seats.
What’s actually next
Volkov isn’t even demanding to cut the line. He said he fully supports Aspinall getting the first crack at the title once he’s healthy, though Aspinall is still sidelined with the eye injuries he suffered against Gane in October 2025. After that, Volkov figures he’s looking at the winner of Pereira vs. Sergei Pavlovich in December. “So maybe the winner of this fight should be my next opponent,” he said.
Or Hokit, if things break that way at the Garden. “Or maybe a fight with Josh Hokit will be also good, just so I can [have] fun with it and have another good week with the UFC,” Volkov said.
Gane and Hokit settle it Nov. 14 in New York. Pereira and Pavlovich go in December. Somewhere in between, somebody at the UFC could try learning the No. 2 heavyweight’s name.
