Alexander Volkanovski has spent fight week suggesting that the longer this goes, the better it gets for him. MMA Junkie framed his comments as the champion saying Movsar Evloev can’t beat him by decision. That’s a perfectly healthy thing for a two-time featherweight champion to believe about himself. It’s a lousy reason to put money on him at even money.
UFC 333 goes Oct. 24 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, and the books have the 145-pound title fight as a pick’em. When a champ with Volkanovski’s résumé (29-4, 15-3 UFC) gets priced like a coin flip, the market is already whispering something. I think the whisper should be a lot louder, and I think it should be in Russian.
The decision machine
Evloev is 20-0, 10-0 in the UFC, and all 10 of those UFC wins went to the judges. People hold that up as a knock, proof he can’t close the show. Fine. He probably won’t finish Volkanovski. That’s irrelevant to the bet. What the stat actually tells you is that across his entire UFC run, nobody has found the round where Evloev breaks.
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Do the arithmetic. Nine three-round fights plus one five-rounder against Lerone Murphy in March comes out to 32 UFC rounds. That’s 160 minutes in the Octagon without being finished and without losing. Diego Lopes couldn’t crack him. Arnold Allen couldn’t. Aljamain Sterling, a former bantamweight champion, couldn’t. Murphy got 25 minutes in a UFC London main event and still came up short on a majority decision.
I’d love to hand you a tidy sheet of strikes per minute and takedown attempts per round. I’m not printing numbers I can’t stand behind, so here’s the output metric I trust most: 32 rounds, zero losses, zero nights where he faded into a spectator. A fighter who has never once been out-lasted is exactly who you want when the other guy’s whole pitch is that he’ll win late.
Evloev heard the pitch and changed his plans. Talking to MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn on Friday, he said he had been looking for a finish against Volkanovski, but after hearing the champion’s comments he no longer wants one. He wants to prove Volkanovski isn’t special, and he said he can beat him over five rounds.
Then he added the line that should be taped to every sportsbook monitor in Abu Dhabi: “All my 10 fights (in the UFC) by decision, so it wasn’t luck, right?”
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Right.
The best case for the champ, and why I’m passing
The strongest argument for Volkanovski is real: he just won two Fight of the Night decisions over Lopes in his second reign, and his only UFC losses came against Islam Makhachev (twice) and Ilia Topuria. BJPenn.com pointed out he turned 38 and still showed no obvious slippage against Lopes. Fair enough. But the common opponent cuts both ways. Evloev also beat Lopes, also went the distance, also took home Fight of the Night. So if the Lopes fights proved Volkanovski’s gas tank, they proved Evloev’s too, and only one of those two guys is 38.
That’s my problem with the Volkanovski money. It’s a pedigree bet. You’re paying for the name, the belt, the old five-round wars, and the feeling that a champion always has another gear in the championship rounds. Feelings are lovely. I’ve lost plenty of money on them.
Now, I’m the guy who grumbles every time someone comes off a long layoff at short odds, so I owe you honesty here. The Murphy fight was Evloev’s first in 15 months. If you’d asked me to bet him blind that night, I’d have squinted. Then he went five rounds with a dangerous featherweight and won anyway. Rust test passed. And this time he’s coming back in roughly seven months, which is about as normal as a UFC calendar gets.
The champ has one eye on lightweight
There’s one more thing nagging at me. Volkanovski recently floated Justin Gaethje as a fantasy retirement fight for both of them, and Evloev clearly noticed. He told MMA Junkie that Volkanovski can probably get that fight whether he wins or loses Saturday after next, but he took a shot at the champion’s mindset: “But in his mind, he’s going to beat me and then go up.”
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Maybe that’s just trash talk. Maybe a 38-year-old with nothing left to prove at 145 is a little more interested in a Gaethje payday than in grinding through 25 minutes with a wrestler who has never been out-paced. Either way, I don’t want to pay full champion price to find out.
Demetrious Johnson broke down Evloev’s pressure, wrestling and striking choices for MiddleEasy this week and flagged a key adjustment he thinks the challenger needs. That’s a good sign for what Evloev’s camp at American Top Team is selling: the pressure doesn’t let up, round after round. That’s the whole fight. If Evloev can keep that pace through Rounds 4 and 5, Volkanovski’s championship-rounds edge disappears and all that’s left is a coin flip the market has already handed you at even money.
I’m on Evloev. Oct. 24, Abu Dhabi, 25 minutes on the clock. I’ll take the guy who asked for every one of them.
