Dana White has a word for Alexander Volkanovski, and CODE Sports put it in quotation marks in its headline on Saturday: ‘Legend.’ The outlet reported that the UFC CEO heaped praise on the featherweight champion ahead of UFC 333, where Volkanovski defends his belt against Movsar Evloev on October 24.
The label holds up. Volkanovski is 28-4 and the current, two-time UFC featherweight champion. He was the first Australian-born fighter to win a UFC title. He held the top spot in the pound-for-pound rankings during two separate stretches between 2022 and 2023, was named Fighter of the Year at the 2022 World MMA Awards, and sat at No. 2 pound-for-pound as of June 16, 2026. He is also tied with José Aldo for the most featherweight title victories in UFC history, which means a win over Evloev would leave him alone at the top of that list.
Then there’s the age. Volkanovski became the oldest fighter to win the featherweight title at 36 and the oldest to successfully defend it at 37. He turned 38 on September 29, so every defense from here pushes that mark further. His last fight was January 31.
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None of it was the plan. He won national Greco-Roman wrestling titles twice at 12, quit at 14 for rugby league, poured concrete after high school in Wollongong and won the Mick Cronin Medal as the Group 7 league’s best player in 2010 with the Warilla Gorillas. His coach, Joe Lopez, said he started MMA at 22 to stay fit in the off-season while weighing 97 kg (214 pounds). He fought amateur bouts at middleweight before working his way down to 145.
That’s where he landed on Friday. The main event became official when Volkanovski weighed 144.5 pounds and Evloev made 145.
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The fight week itself had a loose feel. Volkanovski showed up to Thursday’s press conference dressed as Joe, his character from the Street Fighter movie, according to Championship Rounds on X. At the same presser, heavyweight Alexander Volkov asked White what he had to do to get a title shot. White first asked, “How old are you? What are you looking for, how can we help you?” before settling on “Talk to Sean and Mick.” Some accounts on X read it as White pretending not to recognize Volkov. Happy Punch wrote that he didn’t recognize him at first.
Volkanovski won’t have that problem tonight. Evloev knows exactly who he is, and so does the record book, which has one line waiting to be rewritten if the champion gets his hand raised.
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