Alexander Volkanovski is going to Dagestan, and he’s going there to hunt from the back of a horse with Islam Makhachev.
The featherweight champion laid out the plan in an interview with TMZ Sports, and he made it sound a lot less like a bit and a lot more like a booked flight. “I love the idea of Islam Makhachev, doing it with him. We’ve already even chatted about it,” Volkanovski said. He then sketched the itinerary: the mountains, “horseback hunting, hunting on horseback, catching whatever we catch and then cooking it.”
In case anyone doubted him, he added: “I’m telling you, it’s going to happen. We’re going to do it.”
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The two men shared the Octagon twice in lightweight title fights, and somewhere between those two nights the rivalry turned into the kind of respect that ends with one guy inviting the other to go chase dinner through the Caucasus. Fighters who split time across a cage don’t usually plan camping trips together. These two apparently do.
First, Evloev
Volkanovski has a slightly bigger appointment before any of that. This Saturday, Oct. 24, he defends the featherweight title against Movsar Evloev at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi.
Evloev is 20-0 as a pro and 10-0 in the UFC since debuting in 2019, with his last four wins coming over Lerone Murphy, Aljamain Sterling, Arnold Allen and Diego Lopes. Lopes went on to jump the line and face Volkanovski in two title fights, which tells you how long Evloev has been waiting. The knock on him has always been the same: zero knockouts or submissions inside the UFC.
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Volkanovski has poked at exactly that, saying Evloev can’t beat him on the scorecards and that wrestling alone won’t get the job done. Evloev told MMA Fighting’s José Youngs he thinks Saturday could finally be his first UFC finish, then sounded a different note to MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn. “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,” Evloev said.
Makhachev’s corner of the map
Makhachev, meanwhile, already has people drawing up plans to beat him. Charles Oliveira said he thinks Ian Garry showed Carlos Prates the way, pointing to kicks to the ribs and calves and arguing that if Prates survives the first two rounds with his composure intact, he has the tools to win.
For his part, Makhachev seems relaxed enough to spend his weekend trolling his friends on social media.
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My take: this is the best kind of fight-week story, two guys who beat on each other for title belts deciding the logical next step is a hunting trip in the mountains with no judges and no cutman. I’d pay for the pay-per-view of that, horses included. But Volkanovski should probably pack after Saturday, because walking into Dagestan as the champ against a 20-0 wrestler’s best effort is a much better story than walking in as the guy who just lost to one.
