Alexander Volkanovski gets irritated when people ask about retirement, and he’s said so lately. Ask him who’s next, though, and he’ll hand you a depth chart with the names already sorted.
That’s what he did in an interview with MMA Junkie ahead of UFC 333, where he defends the featherweight title against undefeated Movsar Evloev at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi on October 24. He named three featherweights he’s watching beyond Evloev: Jean Silva, Aljamain Sterling and Kevin Vallejos. Then he ranked them, which is the interesting part.
“After Movsar, you’ve got your Jean Silvas, you’ve got your Aljamain (Sterlings), who are both pretty much in the exact same position,” he said. “They’re the ones who stand out the most right now.”
Vallejos got his mention with an asterisk. Volkanovski said he doesn’t know whether the Argentine can get a title fight that fast and “jump the line.”
I think the champion has the order right today. I also think the order is about to change, because Sterling vs. Vallejos at UFC Qatar next month is a title eliminator in everything but name. Whoever wins it should get the next shot, ahead of Silva.
How the champ got here
It’s easy to forget how shaky this looked. Volkanovski was knocked out by Ilia Topuria at UFC 298, and a lot of people wrote the obituary for his time at the top. He’s 37. Then he beat Diego Lopes at UFC 314 in April to take the 145-pound belt back, won again at UFC 325, and now Evloev is his second defense since the comeback.
After the Lopes win, he said he wanted the division’s rising names and listed Lerone Murphy and Evloev. He got one of them. Murphy’s name didn’t come up on this new list at all, which I’d love someone to ask him about during fight week.
Two résumés, one tiebreaker
Look at what the two contenders closest to the belt bring. Silva is coming off a submission win over Jose Delgado in the Noche UFC main event. Sterling has won two straight, over Brian Ortega and Yousef Zalal. Volkanovski himself said they’re in nearly the same position, and he’s correct. Neither résumé clearly beats the other.
When two cases are that close, you want a result that settles it. Silva can’t produce one in the next month. Sterling can, because he’s fighting the third man on the list.
Vallejos is 4-0 in the UFC, and his last outing was a brutal knockout of Josh Emmett. Volkanovski has warned before that the kid could become a serious problem, and this time he framed Qatar as the exam.
“You see a lot of guys who look good until they fight a veteran with fight IQ that’s calculated,” he said. “Kevin is going to have a tough one here, but if he proves himself, he’s going to show that he deserves to be at the top.”
That’s a champion describing exactly the kind of fight I care about. Volkanovski wants to see how Vallejos handles an experienced opponent who makes adjustments inside the Octagon. Plenty of undefeated prospects look terrific against people who run the same plan for 15 minutes. The ones who matter are the ones who survive a guy changing the problem on them in Round 2.
So play out both results. If Sterling wins, he’s taken out the hottest young name in the division and stretched his streak to three, which puts him a step past Silva. If Vallejos wins, he’s 5-0 in the UFC with Emmett and Sterling on his record, and that’s a line jump he actually earned. Either way, the winner holds a head-to-head result against one of the champion’s own named contenders, and Silva holds a Delgado win. I’d book the Qatar winner.
Silva’s camp will reasonably point to that main-event submission and say he’s been waiting longer. Fair. But time spent waiting is a weak argument next to having just beaten the guy the champion called a test. If the UFC wants Silva in the conversation, it can book him in the meantime and let him make his own case.
For what it’s worth, I lean Sterling in Qatar. Volkanovski’s line about a calculated veteran with fight IQ reads like a scouting report on one specific man, and I doubt that was an accident.
The obvious caveat
None of this matters if Evloev leaves Abu Dhabi with the belt. He’s undefeated, he’s the man Volkanovski asked for after the Lopes fight, and the champion isn’t treating him as a formality. Every name on that list came after Evloev in Volkanovski’s own framing, and he set it up as a condition.
If Volkanovski gets through October 24, the next name gets decided in Qatar next month. Watch that one with the featherweight rankings open on a second screen.
