Alexander Volkanovski spent fight week talking like a man with his eyes on 2027. There was the lightweight superfight with Justin Gaethje, a horseback hunting trip to Dagestan with Islam Makhachev, and a send-off he’d like to share with Gaethje. Movsar Evloev, the man actually standing across from him Saturday, has been talking about something narrower. He wants 25 minutes, and he wants Volkanovski to feel every one of them.
UFC 333 goes down at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 24, with Volkanovski (28-4) defending the featherweight title against Evloev (20-0) over five rounds. The UFC’s own promo has the card airing at 2 p.m. ET on Paramount+.
The main event
Start with the stakes, because they’re real. Per MMA Fighting, a win would give Volkanovski nine featherweight title defenses and move him past Jose Aldo for the most in UFC history. That’s a record that sat on Aldo’s name for a long time, and the champion clearly knows it.
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He also knows what he thinks Evloev wants to do. Speaking on the Who The Fook Are These Guys podcast, Volkanovski said Evloev’s plan is to grab hold of him and keep him down, and that it won’t happen. Then he went a step further. “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.”
Evloev’s answer, via Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie, is the best quote of the week and the reason I’m writing this piece the way I am: “I was looking for finish. But when I hear that kind of talk, I don’t want to finish. I want to prove that he’s not special.”
That’s a guy volunteering for a decision, out loud, against a champion who just told everyone he’s coming for a stoppage. I love it. It’s either the most confident thing a 20-0 fighter has said this year or the setup for a very long night of being forced into a firefight he didn’t want. I lean toward the first.
Here’s the math I keep coming back to. Volkanovski’s record is 28-4, which is a win rate of 87.5 percent across 32 pro fights. Very good. But two of those four losses came in his last two trips up to 155 against Makhachev, and the second one, per MMA Fighting, was a short-notice rematch where he got stopped early after a competitive first fight. I’m not claiming those losses tell you he’s slipping at featherweight. I’m telling you that a fighter who’s been finished in a title fight and is now publicly mapping out a lightweight superfight for 2027 is a fighter whose attention is at least partly elsewhere. That superfight talk landed on Oct. 15, nine days before he defends his belt against an unbeaten contender. The Dagestan hunting trip quote, which TMZ Sports got and which went around X on Oct. 17, came two days later.
Evloev, meanwhile, has done one thing for his entire career, which is win. Twenty times without a loss. You don’t get to 20-0 at the highest level by accident, and you don’t usually get there by chasing finishes either, which is exactly what his own quote implies about how he plans to go about this.
Volkanovski’s argument is that Evloev can’t hold him down and won’t survive on the feet once that plan fails. Maybe. I’ve watched plenty of champions tell me the challenger’s game plan won’t work in the week before it worked just fine. Five rounds is a long time to be right about that every single minute.
I’m also a sucker for the undefeated guy in a spot where everybody’s attention is on the champion’s next move instead of this one. The champion is pitching Gaethje fights. The challenger is pitching “I want to prove that he’s not special.” One of these men sounds like he’s thinking about Saturday.
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Pick: Movsar Evloev by unanimous decision. He told you how he wants to win. I’m taking him at his word, which in this business is rare enough that I want it noted.
If Volkanovski wins, the Gaethje conversation gets louder fast. Per MMA Fighting, Gaethje won the lightweight title with a violent finish of Ilia Topuria at UFC White House in June, Arman Tsarukyan is waiting after a first-round knockout of Mauricio Ruffy, and BMF champion Charles Oliveira fights Diego Lopes on Dec. 12. That’s a crowded line at 155 even before a featherweight champion tries to cut it.
The co-main
Petr Yan (20-5) and Merab Dvalishvili (21-5) meet at bantamweight over five rounds, which is a rare treat for a co-main. The records are about as close as two records can be. Yan has 25 fights, Dvalishvili has 26, and both have lost five times. If you’re looking for a numerical edge on paper, there basically isn’t one, so this pick comes down to who I’d trust more in Rounds 4 and 5.
That’s Dvalishvili for me. Five-round fights between evenly matched guys tend to reward whoever can keep the same output in the 20th minute as in the second, and he’s the one I’d bet on to still be pushing late.
Pick: Merab Dvalishvili by unanimous decision.
Quick picks
Ramazan Temirov over Lone’er Kavanagh, decision. This one’s at flyweight, and it’s an experience gap on paper: Temirov is 20-3, Kavanagh is 10-2. Twenty-three fights against 12 is too wide a gap for me to pass on.
Alexander Volkov over Rizvan Kuniev, TKO, Round 2. Volkov is 40-11 with 51 pro fights at heavyweight. Kuniev is 14-3-1. I’ll take the man who has seen everything, against the guy who hasn’t had time to.
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Losene Keita over Aaron Pico, KO, Round 2. Keita comes in 17-2 at featherweight, Pico 14-5. Bold call, and I’m fine owning it if it goes sideways. I’ve owned worse.
Azamat Murzakanov over Dominick Reyes, KO, Round 1. Murzakanov is 16-1 at light heavyweight against Reyes at 16-5. Same number of wins, four fewer losses. I’m taking the 16-1 guy early.
Abdul-Rakhman Yakhyaev over Nikita Krylov, decision. Yakhyaev is 10-0. Krylov is 31-12 and has been around forever. Light heavyweight veterans with 43 fights on the odometer are exactly who I fade against unbeaten prospects.
And before anyone asks, no, I’m not parlaying all of these. The last time I strung together a card’s worth of picks, I lost on the first fight and spent the rest of the night rooting against my own sense of humor. Straight bets only.
Evloev said he doesn’t want to finish anymore. If he’s still standing there after five rounds with the belt on his shoulder, Volkanovski’s Gaethje fight starts to look a lot less likely.
