"Old Man Volk", Ilia Topuria's "red panty", Henry Cejudo's "trans barbie", Ian Garry flipping off: Top moments from UFC 298 press conference
The highly anticipated UFC 298 event is set to go down this weekend at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. Headlined by an exciting featherweight title fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Ilia Topuria, the stacked fight card features a host of other blockbuster matchups for the fans.
Robert Whittaker will take on Paulo Costa in a middleweight bout in the co-main event, with Ian Garry facing Neoff Neal in a welterweight grudge match before that. Elsewhere on the card, Henry Cejudo will face Merab Dvalishvili, and Roman Kopylov will fight Anthony Hernandez.
All the main card fighters recently gathered at the Honda Center for the official UFC 298 pre-fight press conference. Given the build-ups for many of the matchups, the presser was unsurprisingly an entertaining one.
To begin with, Volkanovski entered the arena dressed as his "Old Man Volk" character, which went viral after his latest Sportsbet advertisement. The Australian even maintained character during the presser, nearly causing a brawl with Topuria after the Georgian-Spanish fighter tried to snatch the belt away from the champion.
Given Topuria's supremely confident demeanor throughout the build-up to this fight and his tendency to duplicate Conor McGregor's style of trash-talking, Volkanovski joked about his opponent and said:
"How about this guy, eh? Conor McGregor wannabe... Talking about a red panty night, he likes to wear the red panties." [11:58]
Apart from the Volkanovski-Topuria banter, Cejudo also dropped a diss for Sean O'Malley after being asked about the importance of beating Dvalishvili. He said:
"A win over Merab gets me back into the title picture. Fight either trans-Barbie [O'Malley] or 50-45 'Chito' Vera." [14:00]
Reacting to Cejudo's words, Dvalishvili immediately joked about the former Olympian seemingly dismissing his Mexican heritage and pulled out a Mexican flag to "represent" the Mexican people.
Later on, Garry tried to squash his beef with Neal by asking if he'd shake his hand after the fight amidst a wave of boos (19:00 mark). Intriguingly, he was also booed when he walked in and couldn't seem to get any support from the attending fans. Garry was also shoved off stage later by Costa, who wasn't keen on waiting for the Irishman to finish flipping fans off.
Costa also shared a hilarious moment with Volkanovski while Topuria sounded off on the Australian, who pretended to fall asleep. 'Borrachinha' then walked over and shook 'The Great' out of his "sleep" while fans laughed.
Watch the full press conference below:
Israel Adesanya predicts UFC 298 co-main event fight between Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa
Israel Adesanya recently shared his predictions for this weekend's Robert Whittaker vs. Paulo Costa fight at UFC 298. He backed the former 185-pound champion to win and dismissed the possibility of a finish.
In a recent YouTube video, 'The Last Stylebender' called the fight in favor of Whittaker and said:
"I feel Rob will win by decision, UD. He's going to land a couple of takedowns, depends on who shows up. He might rock Costa, but I don't think so, I don't think so."
Catch Israel Adesanya's comments below (8:05):