Alexander Volkanovski doesn't blame Abu Dhabi for his Islam Makhachev rematch loss

Alexander Volkanovski isn’t one to entertain superstitions about the venue.

Alexander Volkanovski refuses to blame Abu Dhabi for his loss against Makhachev

The Australian recently celebrated his win against Movsar Evloev in UFC 333. This marked his second successful title defence in a row.

The 38-year-old fighter recently appeared on “The Ariel Helwani Show”. He discussed about his health, weight and experience of fighting Evloev. He also looked back at his previous experience of facing Islam Makhachev.

The two first met in the Octagon in 2023 for the UFC 284 main event. The Russian secured victory by unanimous decision. They again went against each other in October of the same year for the UFC 294 main event. Makhachev was crowned the winner by a quick first-round knockout.

The Australian admitted that there are a lot of superstitions trying to explain the fight. One of them is blaming the city for it. However, Volkanovski doesn’t agree with that approach.

 “What does the location have to do with anything?” he stated.

Instead, he thinks that fighting the Russian on 11 days' short notice contributed more to how the fight ended.

“At the end of the day, I fought Islam Makhachev on 11 days’ notice, coming off the couch, off holidays. I look at that and be like, all right, you’re not beating the best in the world coming off the couch”.
He believes this should always be the approach and not “oh, this location, bad things happen”.

The featherweight champion is not done with finding new challenges.

Alexander Volkanovski wants to fight Arman Tsarukyan

Arman Tsarukyan has made it known that his dream opponent as of now is Justin Gaethje. However, if the lightweight champion decides to leave the octagon for good, he wouldn’t think twice before taking Volkanovski instead.

"Yeah, I would fight him," Tsarukyan said.

“The Great”, during his appearance on “The Ariel Helwani Show”, also appeared to be in agreement with this idea.

“If I was champion at lightweight, I'm fighting Arman. 100%. If Gaethje doesn't wanna do that, I'll do it. Me versus Arman for the belt. That excites me.”

He continued, “If I was champion at lightweight, I'm fighting Arman. 100%. If Gaethje doesn't wanna do that, I'll do it. Me versus Arman for the belt. That excites me.” The fighter seemed to be looking forward to it .

“I think we're starting to figure some (expletive deleted) out.”

It will be interesting to see if a bout between these two is on the horizon.