Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski thinks he’s had plenty of time to prepare for UFC 298.
Volkanovski (26-3 MMA, 13-2 UFC) defends his title against Ilia Topuria (14-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) in the Feb. 17 headliner at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. Volkanovski’s return comes just under four months after suffering a knockout loss to lightweight champion Islam Makhachev at UFC 294 in October.
He appeared emotionally vulnerable in his post-fight speech, but Volkanovski assures he’s had plenty of time to prepare for the undefeated contender.
“He’s a good matchup,” Volkanovski told Michael Bisping on his YouTube channel. “A lot of hype around him, undefeated, I think this is just the perfect bounce-back fight for me, as well. A lot of people are saying he’s dangerous, which look, he is dangerous. He’s a powerful dude. He’s undefeated. That’s a story in itself. You’ve got the story of what happened in my last fight. People are like, ‘Oh, is he coming back too soon?’ All this is a part of the story. When I look at it, I’m like, ‘Mate, I’ve been in camp for that long. I’m hearing people saying, Oh, he’s back too soon.’ I just can’t see it.
“I’ve been busting my ass for that long. I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ Like, I’ve had that much time. This has been a very long camp for me. Obviously I followed all the protocols after it from concussion and that like, I’m lucky enough to have a great team around me. But we followed that to a T, and that’s why the fight was pushed back a month because we just thought January was rushing. We wanted that extra month where I could ease into it and then start camp. That’s what we did.”
Win or lose, Volkanovski is confident in his skills. He fought three times in 2023 and just wants to pick up where he left off.
“I’m not doing this just to get my head right,” Volkanovski said. “I’m doing this because I want to be active. I want to be busy, and I know it’s enough time. A lot of people are going to sit there and say there’s the mental side of things and I get that, but I’m just different. I go into every fight like I’m a pretty confident guy where I believe the only chance a lot of these guys that I fight have of beating me is by catching me.
“So it’s not like, ‘Oh, he got finished, now he’s going to second guess.’ I always fight smart. I always try and be calculated. If I lose, a good chance of that happening is from getting caught. I’m aware of that. I’ve always been that through my whole career. Nothing has changed for me, even in the gym, in sparring. … It’s just another camp. Busting my ass, pull myself through the wringer like I always do, and that’s just that.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 298.
