Alexander Volkanovski is no stranger to a weight cut. The Wollongong-born champ won awards as a rugby league player at 100kg, starting in the front row for Warilla Gorillas on the South Coast of NSW despite standing at just 1.68m tall.
The transformation that accompanied his decision to swap the footy field for the Octagon – where he faces his biggest test yet, against Islam Makhachev this Sunday afternoon – is nothing short of extraordinary.
To boil a body down from 100kg to 65kg, the weight at which he won the UFC Featherweight title, over and over again is no mean feat, especially when you walk around close to eight kilos heavier, as Volkanovski says that he does in between fights.
He went via the welterweight division, where he picked up his only loss to date fighting at 77kg, before going through Lightweight (70kg) en route to making a UFC debut at Featherweight.
It’s at that level that he remains undefeated, and has carved himself one of the great Australian combat sports careers, culminating in a number one slot in the UFC Pound for Pound rankings.
It’s also lead him directly into Makhachev, the Lightweight champ. The Australian will move up in weight to take on the Russian, which is why the bookies have him as a major outsider: the golden rule of all combat sports is that the good big ‘un beats a good little ‘un. They split them into weights for a reason.
Volkanovski has defeated literally everyone around him, with no more fights to make at 65kg, and there’s a big gap before he finds anyone else to tussel with.
(Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
Second in the rankings at Feather is Max Holloway, who he has already defeated three times. We’ve all already seen that movie enough times.
Yair Ortega, next down, is set to fight on Sunday’s bill against fifth-ranked Josh Emmett for the interim version of Volka’s title, setting up a potential clash with the winner if the Aussie chose to go back to campaigning at his previous level.
Then you get English fighter Arnold Allen, and while we’d love an Ashes of MMA, it’s a long stretch to see him troubling Volkanovski for too long at this stage of his career.
The obvious choice, then, is to stick where he is this weekend. Losing in Perth to Makhachev, who is the clear standout in the division, is no shame at all. Add in that it’s Volka’s first bout at the Lightweight limit for more than six years and you’re in the territory where even a decent defeat enhances the reputation.
Even if he loses, the chances of building a reputation in two weights that would result in a second shot at the Lightweight championship further down the line will do far more for the legacy than continuing to pound featherweights.
Volkanovski is now 34, and while he’s a great fighter, nobody beats father time. Those cuts, punishing at the best of times, get even harder as an athlete ages. He admitted himself in an interview last year that he walks around at around 73kgs when out of camp.
Volka has stacked on muscle for the Makhachev bout and can do his body, and his career, a huge benefit by stopping exactly where he is.
The fights available at Lightweight beyond Makhachev are excellent, both on a rankings level and on a money-making level.
If Volkanovski fancies a longer run in the division with the goal of adding that second title – presuming he doesn’t win in on Sunday – then he would certainly go in towards the top of the rankings with Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje and Dustin Poirier, all former champs, still campaigning at the weight.
If he wants to put bums on seats and make a shedload of cash, there’s few MMA fans out there who wouldn’t want to see him take on Rafael dos Anjos or even a Trans-Tasman fight with Kiwi legend Dan Hooker.
There’s even the chance to go in with Paddy ‘the Baddy’ Pimblett, the biggest rising star at Lightweight. That would be the Ashes clash the whole world would pay to see.
It’s obligatory to mention that Alexander ‘The Great’ has no more worlds to conquer, but the line is trotted out because it is true: the legacy of Volkanovski as the greatest Aussie MMA fighter ever, and one of the best Featherweights to ever step into the Octagon, is well established.
Now, the next level comes on Sunday at UFC 284 in Perth with his attempt to become ‘champ-champ’ against Makhachev. But if even if that fails, he should stick where he is now, and create a new legacy there.
That might be as a champion, or it might be as a guy who made a shedload of cash giving the fans the sort of fights that they pay to see. Either way, it should be at 70kgs.
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