After UFC 273, Alex Volkanovski’s Still Second-Best—And That’s a Good Thing | Bleacher Report
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Alex Volkanovski (right) punches the Korean ZombieCooper Neill/Getty Images
Sometimes life doesn’t deviate from the script. Sometimes the favorite cashes. Sometimes “on paper” becomes “in real life” with nary the batting of an eyelash.
Because sometimes you have a fighter like Alex Volkanovski.
Whenever you see the UFC featherweight champion compete, you’re seeing the best version of himself. You’re getting something steady and thoughtfully crafted. You’re getting predictable excellence, a complete physical and mental product.
The main event at UFC 273, which went down Saturday from Jacksonville, Florida, was just the latest case in point. Volkanovski defended his 145-pound title for the third consecutive time with a dominating, semi-disturbing dismantling of a supremely tough but gravely overmatched Korean Zombie (government name Chan Sung Jung). The official result was a rare standing TKO at 45 seconds of the fourth round.
Jeff Bottari/Getty Images
“I said all this week that I was on another level,” Volkanovski told broadcaster and podcaster Joe Rogan in the cage after the fight. “I can’t be stopped, and I just showed…it’s just drive. The drive to be better.”
How good is he really? Volkanovski is third on the UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings and could be number two. And there’s always some flutter of discussion about Volkanovski being the best featherweight in MMA history.
“He’s better than he’s ever been,” observed broadcaster and podcaster Joe Rogan after Saturday’s fight. “And he was already the best.”
I’m gonna stop you right there, Joe. Even after another master class like this one, Volkanovski is still only second fiddle. It’s a good string section, but for the foreseeable future he’s second best nonetheless. But let’s get back to that.
On Saturday, Volkanovski spent the opening minutes of round one working behind a jab so fast you could hear it before you saw it. Zombie tried to trade but it was immediately clear he’d brought a rubber hose to a jousting match. His face was soon tenderized. Leg kicks were of course a factor. The champ was just piecing him up, in other words, even as he carefully conserved energy for subsequent rounds.
It was much the same in the second, with Zombie looking flat-footed and lunging after Volkanovski with his lands low, getting either nothing or tagged for the effort. Volkanovski opened up a bit and hit two takedowns. Zombie landed but there just was no zip on the Zombie’s side of the table.
In the third, Zombie eventually found a home for the uppercut, but Volkanovski took the hit and went right back to work. Zombie’s takedown defense, honed by a fight camp spent with wrestling/UFC all-timer Henry Cejudo, was in evidence. But the champ simply wouldn’t allow any one thing to stanch his flow. Zombie never quite knew what was coming, thanks to the champ’s constant feints and the unpredictability of his combination sequencing.
At the end of the third, a huge combination dropped Zombie and led to ground strikes. Referee Herb Dean would have had every reason to stop it, but didn’t. And of course his corner didn’t save him. They all asked Zombie, who, being a fighter, let them all off the hook by saying he still wanted to fight even though he couldn’t find his stool. So the punishment continued.
It didn’t last much longer. With his face a single swollen bruise, his eyesight quite possibly compromised, and his legs trembling underneath him as if awaiting last call on a midwinter booze cruise, Zombie was brave but doomed. Volkanovski clocked him with one more crushing one-two combination, and still the Zombie didn’t fall, and finally Dean swooped in and pulled the champion away from his beaten victim.
According to UFC stats, Volkanovski outlanded Zombie 138-48 in significant strikes.
“[Zombie] actually took a lot more [punishment] than I wanted him to,” Volkanovski told Rogan. “I thought they could have stopped it a bit earlier. I started kind of feeling bad in there, but that’s the sport we’re in.”
There may have been bigger moments on the Volkanovski highlight reel. That third round against Brian Ortega, for instance, when he gutted through two serious choke attempts. His first fight with Max Holloway, where he landed a featherweight record 75 leg kicks.
But this was the most emphatic beating, and it was the best version of a champ that was already pretty elite. And yet he still has work to do if he’s going to catch Jose Aldo as the featherweight GOAT.
Jeff Bottari/Getty Images
Volkanovski is 24-1, 10-0 in the UFC, 8-0 as a UFC featherweight and the three title defenses. He also of course has a decision win over Aldo.
Nevertheless, Aldo is 31-7, 13-6 UFC and 10-4 UFC featherweight, but with seven title defenses over two separate title reigns. And that’s before we get to the WEC, which was the sport’s premiere home for lighter-weight fighters back when the UFC’s lightest division was lightweight. Aldo notched wins over Cub Swanson, Urijah Faber and current American Top Team coaching mastermind Mike Brown, just to name a few.
So, yes. Volkanovski has work to do. In fact, he himself acknowledged that fact before the fight.
“I believe I’ve still got more work to do,” he said when asked about his GOAT status. “I give Aldo the respect. To be champion for as long as he was is incredible. No matter, the opposition that I’m facing with guys like himself and Max, I think I’m fighting absolute killers. …And for him to be for so long, it’s saying something.”
And there’s the mention of Holloway. Although Volkanovski has beaten him twice, both men know there’s unfinished business there. Although Volkanovski didn’t name any specific name after Saturday’s win, he did make mention of the “fight that was originally supposed to to be scheduled”—which of course was a third bout with Holloway.
Volkanovski isn’t better yet than Aldo. He is better than Holloway. Thankfully for him and all of us, that’s something Holloway can do something about.
In their rematch six months after Volkanovski took Holloway’s title, now fighting in front of that eerie 2020 pandemic silence, was much closer. After Holloway clearly won the first two rounds with damaging shots and better use of range, Volkanovski turned up the workrate round over round until the final moments of a wild, empty-the-tank fifth round. It could not have been much closer, especially in the third and fourth. The champ defended by a 47-48, 48-47, 48-47 split decision.
Holloway (left) and VolkanovskiJohn Locher/Associated Press
Recall now that a close loss and a robbery are not the same thing. Their rematch was close, but it didn’t rise to the level of injustice. Still, there’s certainly an easy case for a trilogy match when you’ve got greats this great and stakes this high. Yet another Volkanovski fight that, if we’re lucky, will play out in accordance with its makings.
Volkanovski knows how great he is and how great he can be. Just as he took his time tearing into the Zombie Saturday night, Volkanovski will take his time climbing the featherweight mountain. He knows exactly where the story is going. We’re all just lucky we’ve got good seats.
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