Robert Whittaker has watched Alexander Volkanovski beat up younger men long enough to talk himself into chasing UFC gold one more time. In a recent appearance on Submission Radio, first written up by Bloody Elbow, the 35-year-old former middleweight champion said the 38-year-old featherweight king’s latest win has him fired up for another championship push, this time at light heavyweight.
“He’s just so good,” Whittaker said. “He’s an inspiration, man.”
Then came the part where he basically signed his own contract on air. Whittaker said that whenever he sees Volkanovski “go in there and just smash someone, smoke some dude at his age,” he walks away with one conclusion. “I’m going on another title run,” he said, laughing. “That’s it. That’s it. I’m doing it.”
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You can see why the Volk tape hit him that way. Volkanovski, a two-time UFC featherweight champion, got knocked out by Islam Makhachev and then by Ilia Topuria in back-to-back fights, and a lot of people were ready to write the retirement tribute. Instead he went out at UFC 333 and knocked out Movsar Evloev, a finish Bloody Elbow figures will be in the Performance of the Year conversation when 2026 wraps up. At 38, he’s still running 145 pounds.
Whittaker’s situation has some overlap. “The Reaper” has been open in the past about the end of his career getting closer, and this Volkanovski run seems to have shifted that math for him. He’s already made the move up to 205 pounds, and the debut went about as well as it could. He finished Nikita Krylov at UFC 329 and walked straight into the light heavyweight rankings at No. 11. Bloody Elbow also pointed out that fighters have historically had real staying power at light heavyweight, which is a decent omen for a guy who’s 35 and new to the weight class.
Next up is a homecoming. Whittaker fights Bogdan Guskov, the No. 10-ranked light heavyweight, at UFC Sydney next February at Afterpay Arena. The UFC’s Australia and New Zealand account announced the matchup on X on Nov. 1, and it’ll be Whittaker’s first fight in his home city in more than a decade.
I’m all in on this. Whittaker getting talked into a title run by a guy three years older than him who just shut up every doubter in the building is the best kind of fight-world peer pressure, and it beats another veteran quietly fading out on a Fight Night prelim. The path is also simple. He’s No. 11, Guskov is No. 10, and the fight is in front of a Sydney crowd that’s waited over 10 years to see him live. Beat Guskov in February and “another title run” stops being a laugh line on a podcast and turns into a real conversation at 205.
