UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski is confident he’d shut down Ilia Topuria’s hype.
Topuria (13-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC) emerged as a title contender when he beat down a gutsy Josh Emmett for 25 minutes in the UFC on ABC 5 headliner less than two weeks ago. With 12 of his 14 professional wins finishes, Topuria claims he could finish Volkanovski in one round, and the champ relishes the opportunity of silencing the highly touted 26-year-old contender.
“Everyone’s hyping him up. Everyone wants that fight,” Volkanovski said on the “Believe You Me” podcast with Michael Bisping. “He likes to talk, as well, which I like, so that would be exciting. So, it’s definitely something that, if the UFC brought to me I’d be like, ‘Yeah, sweet, no worries.’ Again, a lot of people are hyping him right up. I view him a lot different than a lot of people are, to be honest. But I mean, everyone’s hyping him up, thinks he’s that good.
“So like, all right, sweet. I’ll show you how good I am, because I see a lot of holes in his game, a lot of things that I could capitalize on. So I would love that fight, but obviously I’ve got Yair to worry about, so I don’t want to disrespect Yair by sounding like I’m not paying attention to him. … If he wants this and the UFC want it and the people want it, people think he’s going to stand a chance, I’ll show you that he doesn’t.”
Volkanovski (25-2 MMA, 12-1 UFC) is scheduled to unify his belt with interim champ Yair Rodriguez (15-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC) in the UFC 290 headliner, which takes place Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ABC, ESPN and ESPN+.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 290.
