Alexander Volkanovski’s audacious bid to win a UFC lightweight title on less than two weeks notice.has failed as he was spectacularly knocked out by champion Islam Makhachev In the first round of their rematch in Abu Dhabi.
Makhachev landed some good kicks and knee blows before a devastating left leg kick to the head floored the 35-year-old Australian.
The blow opened up a cut on Volknaovski’s head and a few seconds of ground and pound from Makhachev prompted referee Marc Goddard to stop the fight at the 3:06 mark of the first round on Saturday night (Sunday AEDT).
“It’s hard, I don’t like losing it hurts me, but he’s a great champion,” UFC featherweight champion Volkanovski said.
Volkanovski, who was a late replacement for injured former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira, wasn’t able to land a significant strike and was on the back foot from the start.
“I showed him first a couple of low kicks and body kicks and I changed to a high kick,” Makhachev said.
“This is an old plan what we trained the last couple of months for Oliveira and nothing changed for Volkanovski.
Islam Makhachev knocks out Alexander Volkanovski. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
“But I want to say thank you to this guy, he’s a real champion, I told you you have to turn off the lights to defeat this guy.”
Volkanovski, from Windang on the NSW South Coast, said he wanted to stay busy and defend his featherweight title in January, most likely against Ilia Topuria.
In the co-main event, Khamzat.Chimaev improved to 13-0, scoring a majority points win over former welterweight world champion Kamaru Usman in a middleweight bout.
However, Chimaev, who is expected to challenge middleweight champion Sean Strickland, thought he might have suffered a broken hand during the bout.
Mungbean74
Roar Rookie
Yep, my son’s weight loss over 5 days was definitely not organized. The coaches and staff thought it was a virus and only when he returned after 5 days the docs realized after the 2nd day of intravenous.
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
Windang is in the Illawarra region, isn't it? Is that considered South Coast? (Not trying to be smart, just unsure)
Gray-Hand
Roar Rookie
Not good for a rugby player, but professional fighters organise their life around cutting weight like that. Tim Tszyu loses a similar amount of weight for fights. Volk would have regained about 5kgs by the time of the fight. Having said that - having only 11 days to prepare for the fight and having to cut that much weight at the same time would have made for really poor preparation.
Mungbean74
Roar Rookie
Yeah that’s a lot, my 85 kg son lost 12 kg this summer playing rugby here in Japan due to heatstroke and we thought we were gonna lose him. After five days of not being well immediate Intravenous helped him a lot, but it took him quite a while to recover properly. Definitely not the ideal situation for sports person to lose that much weight
andrew
Roar Rookie
I read where Alex lost 12kg in 10 or 11 days. If that's true that's an awful lot of weight to lose in such a short time, and I might add not the best condition to fight for a world title.