The quality of athletes in mixed martial arts has grown dramatically since Alexander Volkanovski made his UFC debut in 2016. It’s even better than it was in 2019, when he chopped down Max Holloway to begin his first reign as featherweight champion.
More young athletes are training MMA full-time. As it gains popularity and pay increases, more are choosing it over football, wrestling, or boxing. The regional circuit is now packed with explosive, hungry fighters like Jean Silva, who systematically destroyed Bryce Mitchell on Saturday and choked him unconscious, just more than a year after earning his contract on Dana White’s Contender Series.
This sport, especially in the lower weight classes, has become a young man’s game. Veterans not only have to navigate younger, faster, fresher opponents, but they’re also dealing with the grind of weight cuts that get harder with every passing year.
In 17 UFC championship bouts from lightweight down that featured a fighter aged 35 or older, the younger man won every time.
Until Saturday.
Until Volkanovski.
He regained the featherweight belt that Ilia Topuria vacated by unanimous decision over Lopes by scores of 49-46 twice and 48-47 with a performance that hit all the right notes, and earned Fight of the Night honors.
At 36, coming off two brutal knockouts and having lost three of four, he wasn’t supposed to do this. Not against Diego Lopes, a slick, explosive BJJ black belt who had won five in a row, three of them in under 98 seconds.
Volkanovski was already, arguably, the greatest featherweight of all-time heading into Saturday. He had beaten every man to have held the featherweight title, other than Conor McGregor, who moved up to lightweight in 2015 before Volkanovski joined the UFC.
There’s nothing about Volkanovski that jumps off the screen. At 5-foot-6, he’s not a huge guy. He’s not the fastest or the strongest. He’s not the best boxer or the best wrestler.
But the whole is better than the sum of its parts. He shows up to the gym every day ready to work, studies obsessively, and never underestimates his opponents.
He spoke at the post-fight news conference about taking the second Makhachev fight on 11 days’ notice. And if he had any regrets, he didn’t show them.
He believed. Just like he believed on Saturday.
“I’m a guy who challenges himself, who backs himself when his back is against the wall and the odds are stacked against him,” Volkanovski said. “I’m still trying to give it a crack. I’m that same guy with that same mindset and mentality who turns up in the gym every day.
“If I’m not going to do that shit, I wouldn’t be the champion I am.”
He was asked if he’d have walked away had he lost. It would have been his third loss in a row and his fourth in five fights.
His days of fighting for the belt would probably have been done.
Yet, he grinned as the question was being asked.
“You know, I never thought of it like that,” he said, pointing out that the idea of losing had never entered his mind.
He went out, closed the distance and was in the perfect spot to land. Veteran featherweight Dan Ige, who stopped Sean Woodson on the preliminary card, said Lopes was the hardest hitter he ever faced,.
Lopes dropped Volkanovski at the end of the second round with an overhand right, and he hit him enough that Volkanovski needed stitches under both eyes and in his mouth.
But Volkanovski was active, smart and determined. He landed 158 of 259 significant strikes, landing at a phenomenal 61 percent. He blunted Lopes’ offense enough that Lopes had no takedown attempts or submission attempts and landed only 63 punches over 25 minutes.
“I thought he looked incredible tonight,” UFC CEO Dana White said.
Lopes attacked throughout, but he couldn’t find the consistent opens to get the job done.
The frown on his face as Bruce Buffer was reading the scores said everything about his belief as to how the fight had gone.
“This is a man who is so experienced in the UFC,” Lopes said. “What a great career he has had. Listen, maybe I came up short in the technical space, but I can see myself coming back. I only have two years in this organization.”
The challengers will be backing up, as they always are for a guy who has three wins over Max Holloway and single victories over Jose Aldo, Brian Ortega, Chad Mendes, the Korean Zombie, and Yair Rodriguez.
But Volkanovski, who said he’d like to be back before September if x-rays on his hands come back negative, won’t back down.He wouldn’t bite on whether he’s the featherweight GOAT, a question that’s sparked passionate debate. Even White passed that one.
Volkanovski is just an average guy who happens to have an extraordinary gift for fight, and he doesn’t get too full of himself.
“I don’t like talking about it, because I’ve got so much respect for Aldo,” Volkanovski said. “I’ll say he’s the guy, because that’s the respect I have for him. I’ll let other people choose who they think.”
In the end, Volkanovski didn’t reclaim the featherweight title with flash or fury. He did it the way he always has: by showing up, digging deep, and refusing to break. He’s not the loudest, the biggest, or the most celebrated. But at 36, he’s still here.
And, once again, he’s the featherweight champion.
That is a feat worthy of celebrating.
Sam Navarro/Imagn Images
Alexander Volkanovski began his second reign as UFC featherweight champion by defeating Diego Lopes Saturday at UFC 314.