Alexander Volkanovski lost his featherweight title to Ilia Topuria in the UFC 298 main event, marking his first-ever loss in the featherweight category, and attributed his defeat to simply being outperformed, refusing to blame it on his busy fight schedule.
Alexander Volkanovski’s featherweight title loss? He’s got a simple explanation. He was just beaten, plain and simple.
The UFC 298 main event was a game-changer. Ilia Topuria left Volkanovski sprawled on the mat after a knockout blow against the fence. This result crowned Topuria the new UFC champ at 145 pounds. Volkanovski? He was aiming for his sixth consecutive title defense. Instead, he tasted his first defeat in the featherweight category.
Volkanovski’s been a busy bee in recent years. He’s had a couple of high-profile title fight losses to lightweight champ Islam Makhachev. Makhachev knocked Volkanovski out with a head kick last October. But at the post-event press conference, Volkanovski didn’t pin his loss on his packed fight schedule.
“You can’t take anything away from Topuria,” Volkanovski said. “If he lands a punch like that, you’re hitting the deck. No two ways about it.”
“That was a clean right hand. Let one of those land on your chin while you’re off guard, and you’re probably going down. Don’t let him catch you. That’s the gist of it. He caught me, so I won’t discredit him. I’m not going to make excuses. I felt great. Training was great. I felt good in the ring.”
After his second loss to Makhachev, Volkanovski was visibly shaken. He opened up about his mental health struggles to the media post-fight. He talked about the challenge of maintaining a balanced lifestyle amidst fight bookings.
In the days leading up to Saturday’s event, Volkanovski was in good spirits. He played up his “Old Man Volk” persona, which had become a social media sensation. After the loss, he refused to wallow in self-pity.
“That was totally different,” Volkanovski said, referring to his comments post the Makhachev knockout. “This time, I was upbeat throughout, and I still am. He caught me, and that’s that.”
“I felt good in there. I felt like I was on top of things early on. But he ended up catching me. I was comfortable in the first round and then we decided to step it up. I was about to do more and he caught me. That’s just how it goes. I’m pretty sure we were leading until then, but that’s just how the game is.”
According to the official scorecards, Volkanovski was actually leading after one round. But that didn’t matter in the end. Topuria found a way to finish and end Volkanovski’s five-year reign as featherweight champion.
Volkanovski called for an immediate rematch several times during his post-fight comments. If he gets one, he promises a different outcome.
“We knew he would be fast,” Volkanovski said. “We knew he would be powerful, obviously. We knew not to be on the cage there and let him catch us there, so again, he did a great job there, so there’s not much I can say other than congrats to him.”
“Obviously, I’ve been a champ for a long time and I want that rematch, so that’s something that needs to happen. I’ve been reigning champ for how long? I’ve been a bit of a company man. Went back up on short notice, I fought Max [Holloway] three times, you name it, I’ve done it individually for a long time so I think I deserve that and it’s going to be different next time.”