Alexander Volkanovski has made peace with the end, and he’s in no rush to get there. According to ESPN Singapore, the featherweight champion said retirement doesn’t frighten him, and neither does the idea of still fighting at 40.
That would have sounded like a long shot not long ago. The math has changed. Volkanovski turned 38 on September 29, and he’s already set age records at 145 pounds. He became the oldest man to win the UFC featherweight title at 36, then the oldest to defend it at 37. He carries a 28-4 record into Saturday, sits No. 1 at featherweight in the Knockout Daily rankings, and was No. 2 pound-for-pound in the UFC’s men’s rankings as of June 16. His title wins at featherweight are tied with José Aldo’s for the most in UFC history. One more on Saturday and he has that record alone.
The man standing in the way is Movsar Evloev, and the market doesn’t trust either of them more than the other. Championship Rounds noted on X that the fight was sitting at 50-50 on Polymarket earlier this week. Volkanovski last fought on January 31, so October 24 marks a gap of almost nine months.
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Fight week has been loose for him. He arrived at Thursday’s UFC 333 press conference dressed as Joe, his character from the Street Fighter movie, per Championship Rounds. When the crowd started chanting Evloev’s name in the middle of a Volkanovski answer, Evloev cut them off and told them to “respect the champ.” That’s a rare kind of class two days before a title fight, and it made the faceoff that followed feel more like a meeting of two pros than a sales pitch.
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Volkanovski has plans outside the cage, too. Spinnin Backfist reported on X that he’s heading to Dagestan to film an episode of Cooking With Volk alongside Islam Makhachev. “We want to do a whole hunting on horseback, catch stuff, cook over a fire....you can just imagine how good that content will be,” Volkanovski said.
None of that sounds like a man counting down to the end. If he beats Evloev, every fight after Saturday adds to the age record he already holds, and his comments to ESPN suggest he’s happy to keep extending it. If he loses to a fighter the betting public sees as his equal, the retirement question will come back fast. Either way, he’ll have his answer on October 24.
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