“We would be very supportive,” Dana White said of Alexander Volkanovski taking another run at 155 pounds, according to a post from Bloody Elbow on X late Saturday night. The post framed it plainly: White is open to giving the featherweight champion another lightweight shot.
The timing makes sense. Earlier Saturday at UFC 333, Volkanovski finished Movsar Evloev in the second round and kept his belt. He’s 38. He’s the No. 1 featherweight in our rankings and was 28-4 heading into the night. Wikipedia lists him as the oldest man to win the UFC featherweight title (at 36) and now the oldest to successfully defend it (at 38). He also holds the record for most featherweight title wins in UFC history and sat at No. 2 pound-for-pound as of June. When a guy with that résumé asks for a superfight, the CEO tends to say yes before the question is finished.
Volkanovski didn’t leave much to interpret. Championship Rounds posted his comments on X, where he named Justin Gaethje as the target and attached a retirement clause to it.
View post on X
“I don’t want to hold divisions up, but I believe we could do this and not hold the divisions up,” Volkanovski said. “That’s something I’d retire for. If they want to give me that opportunity, win or lose I’d retire.”
That phrase about holding divisions up is doing some work, because White used nearly the same language the same night about somebody else. Per another Championship Rounds post, White said Islam Makhachev never gave the UFC a reason for not fighting in January.
View post on X
“Islam fights like once a year. He was slated for January, and then said ‘I don’t want to fight until after Ramadan,’” White said. “You can’t hold up divisions like this. You gotta keep moving.”
So the boss is publicly grumbling about one star’s schedule while praising another who just defended a title and wants to stay busy. Volkanovski’s last fight before Saturday was Jan. 31, 2026, which puts him on roughly a two-fights-a-year clip at an age when most featherweights are doing podcasts. I have spent a career warning people off fighters coming back from long layoffs at short prices. Volkanovski is the opposite case, and that’s exactly why the UFC likes him.
View post on X
Nothing is signed, and neither White nor Volkanovski gave a date. What’s on the record is a champion offering to walk away win or lose for one specific fight, and a promoter saying out loud that he’d back it. That leaves the featherweight belt as the obvious loose end, and Volkanovski was photographed after the event next to fellow UFC 333 winner Petr Yan, both of them grinning like men who know they have options.
