"All respect to Islam and his team" - Alexander Volkanovski meets up with Islam Makhachev post UFC 294, delivers a message of champions
Alexander Volkanovski proved that he is a champion at heart when he met up Islam Makhachev after getting brutally knocked out by him the night before. Volkanovski put his ambition to become a two-division champion on the line when he stepped up to fight Makhachev in a short notice rematch at UFC 294.
While most people expected Makhachev to take over in the later rounds on the back of better preparation, he put a conclusive ending to the rivalry with a devastating head kick knockout in the opening round.
Alexander Volkanovski, who was perceived as the better striker between them, gave no excuses for the loss and handled it gracefully. He gave Islam Makhachev full credit for setting up a beautiful strike even in the octagon interview. The Australian fighter met up with the UFC lightweight champion after the event and shared the picture on his Instagram account. In the caption to the post, he gave a message of the champions:
“All respect to Islam and his team. On to the next one.”
See the post below:
Alexander Volkanovski is one of the greatest fighters of this generation. He has been ruling the featherweight division with an iron grip since December 2019 when he defeated Max Holloway to capture the divisional title. However, no fighter is perfect and Volkanovski's loss to Makhachev proves the same.
The 35-year-old has always been vulnerable to head kicks from taller opponents. For instance, two of his three professional losses have come by way of head kick knockout. Additionally, two of the four knockdowns suffered in Volkanovski’s UFC career so far were a direct result of a head kick.
Alexander Volkanovski opens up about mental struggles
UFC 294 post-fight press conference was a rare occasion when Alexander Volkanovski showed the more vulnerable and emotional side of his personality. While he was trying to cope up with the record-setting knockout loss that was fresh in his mind, the UFC featherweight champion shed light on the mental struggles he has to deal with when he is not preparing for a fight:
“(Islam Makhachev) is not somebody you should be taking a short-notice fight with but I needed it. Obviously a lot of people will say it’s for the money and all that. But it was much more than that. It is hard for athletes (chokes up)... I never thought I would struggle with it but for some reason when I wasn’t fighting or in camp, (holds back tears) f*** sorry! I was just doing my head in. I needed a fight.”
Volkanovski admitted that he was not training as hard as he usually does, but took the fight nevertheless because mentally and emotionally, he needed to be in a fight.
Watch Alexander Volkanovski express his thoughts from the 01:40 mark of the video below: