Bruce Buffer is apparently already planning his movie night. “I always love seeing fighters cross over into film, TV and entertainment. Congrats to Volk! Looking forward to seeing him in the new Street Fighter movie,” the UFC’s longtime announcer wrote on X on Thursday.
The post arrived the same morning Alexander Volkanovski walked into the UFC 333 press conference dressed as his character, Joe, from the upcoming live-action film, according to Championship Rounds. The UFC played along on its own YouTube channel with a short captioned “How is this fair, Evloev is fighting Joe from Street Fighter…” Beyond the character name, production details such as a release date haven’t surfaced in the reporting so far.
The timing makes this more than a fun costume bit. Volkanovski (28-4) is the No. 1 featherweight in the Knockout Daily rankings and the current two-time UFC featherweight champion. He’s the first Australian-born fighter to win a UFC title, and he was No. 2 in the UFC men’s pound-for-pound rankings as of June 16. He also became the oldest fighter to win the featherweight belt at 36 and the oldest to defend it at 37. He turned 38 in September, and he hasn’t fought since Jan. 31.
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His opponent this Saturday is Movsar Evloev, and the market can’t separate them. Championship Rounds noted the fight was sitting at 50-50 on Polymarket earlier this week. Evloev, for his part, kept the press conference civil. When the crowd started chanting his name while Volkanovski was answering a question, Evloev told them to stop and show the champion some respect, per Championship Rounds.
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The film role fits a pattern of Volkanovski building a life outside the cage while still holding the belt. Spinnin Backfist reported that he plans to travel to Dagestan to film an episode of Cooking With Volk with Islam Makhachev, and he described the plan himself: “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.”
My view is that none of this matters if he looks sharp in the first five minutes Saturday. A 50-50 line against a younger contender is a real fight, and a costume at the presser won’t help him in the cage. If Volkanovski wins, the Joe character gets a champion’s publicity tour. If he loses, every Street Fighter joke on fight week ages badly. We’ll know which one on Oct. 24 at UFC 333.
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