Alexander Volkanovski says that his status as longtime UFC featherweight champion should earn him an immediate rematch with Ilia Topuria — and when that happens, he says the title belt will return Down Under.
Volkanovski’s impressive featherweight run of victories came to an end on Saturday night in Anaheim, California when unbeaten title challenger Topuria landed a right hook that felled the Australian, and consigned him to his second knockout loss in his past two fights.
But speaking to the media, including The Mac Life, afterwards, Volkanovski took nothing away from his opponent and said that if anyone in the division is hit with Topuria’s right hand they will likely meet a similar fate.
“That was a clean right hand and I think no matter who you are, you let one of those land on your chin while you’re caught there, you’re probably going down,” the now former champion said. Don’t let him catch you, that’s what that was. He caught me, so I won’t take nothing away from him. I’m not going to sit there and say it was this or it was that. I felt great. Camp was great. I felt good in there.
“We knew he would be fast,” Volkanovski added. “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.”
Volkanovski, though, made no bones about what he wants next: a second bite at Topuria, something he says he has earned throughout his UFC run to date.
“Obviously, I’ve been a champ for a long time and I want that rematch, so that’s something that needs to happen,” he said. “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 three times, you name it, I’ve done it individually for a long time so I think I deserve that and I it’s going to be different next time.”
