Alexander Volkanovski has made his pick for the UFC 333 co-main event, and he’s going with Petr Yan to beat Merab Dvalishvili in their trilogy, Last Word On Sports reported Thursday.
That’s the whole pick as reported. The coverage doesn’t lay out how Volkanovski sees Yan getting it done, so we’re not going to fill in his reasoning for him.
He’s picking fights during a busy week. Volkanovski (28-4) headlines the same card Saturday, Oct. 24, against Movsar Evloev, and he weighed in Friday at 144.5 pounds to Evloev’s 145. He’s the current and two-time featherweight champion, ranked No. 2 pound-for-pound as of June. He still found time Thursday to show up at the press conference dressed as Joe, his character from the Street Fighter movie, according to Championship Rounds. That doesn’t look like a man losing sleep over Evloev.
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His read on a grappler against a striker carries some weight. Volkanovski won a national Greco-Roman title twice at age 12 and boxed professionally in 2015 before his UFC run. He’s lived on both sides of the problem Yan has to solve.
Yan (20-5) enters as the current and two-time bantamweight champion and sat at No. 4 pound-for-pound as of Sept. 22. He spent eight years in boxing and earned Master of Sport at 64 kg before he ever stepped into a cage, and his hands have always been the case for him in this matchup. He hasn’t fought since Dec. 6, 2025.
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Dvalishvili doesn’t sound like a guy who read the prediction and got nervous. At their face-off he told Yan: “Talk now, enjoy. Saturday I will show you. I will eat you.” That’s about as direct as fight week gets, and I’ll take it over another round of polite podium talk.
Both men hit 135 pounds on the scale, so the trilogy is locked in. Volkanovski’s pick gets graded Saturday night in the co-main, and then he has to walk out and deal with Evloev himself.
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