MIAMI – Alexander Volkanovski admits he didn’t expect Ilia Topuria to relinquish his UFC featherweight belt.
Topuria opted to leave his 145-pound title behind for a move up to lightweight. As a result, Volkanovski (26-5 MMA, 13-4 UFC) will battle Diego Lopes (26-6 MMA, 5-1 UFC) for the vacant title in Saturday’s UFC 314 main event (ESPN+ pay-per-view) at Kaseya Center from Miami.
“The Great” figured Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) would attempt to chase dual-champion status.
“I was pretty surprised with him vacating,” Volkanovski told MMA Junkie and other reporters Wednesday at UFC 314 media day. “I knew he wanted to chase the lightweight title, to move up. I heard him saying that, but I didn’t think he would give up the belt that easy. I thought he would try and hold it. That’s why you’ve got to have respect for that, for him to not want to hold up a division.”
Volkanovski lost his featherweight title to Topuria by knockout at UFC 298 last February. After Topuria defended his title with a knockout of Max Holloway at UFC 308, he welcomed the idea of a rematch with Volkanovski, but wound up changing divisions.
“Obviously I wanted that fight back. I wanted to get that win back,” Volkanovski said. “I was hoping to fight a bit later last year, October, maybe December-ish. It was starting to drag on. I got to a point where I was like, ‘All right, if he’s going to wait around, I’ll do an interim against someone and then we’ll fight.’ It got to that point. So it wasn’t a surprise that he moved up, but surprise that he vacated.”
Volkanovski isn’t ruling out the possibility to get the chance to avenge his loss to Topuria.
“I plan on being that active, defending champ,” Volkanovski said. “Once he’s done his fight, if he was to win the belt, imagine us running it back, both champions after me having this little title reign. I’m expecting to have a couple of fights by the time he fights (again), to be honest – that’s how active I want to be. So you can just imagine how big that rematch could be. Getting that win back, is still an opportunity not too far in.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 314.
