For the primary time in his 12-year profession, Alexander Volkanovski suffered back-to-back losses. Not solely has he misplaced consecutive fights, “The Nice” was knocked out in each losses.
Volkanovski stepped in on 10-days discover to face light-weight champion Islam Makhachev in a rematch at UFC 294 final October after former champion Charles Oliveira was compelled out of the title bout on account of a minimize. 4 months later, at UFC 298, Volkanovski was knocked out by Topuria. Many questioned whether or not Volkanovski returned too quickly.
Former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker believes the loss to Makhachev undoubtedly affected Volkanovski within the battle with Topuria.
“I do not wish to come off as I am downplaying Ilia. I believe he’s phenomenal,” Whittaker stated on the MMArcade podcast. “I do know personally, with no shadow of a doubt, that battle and loss to Makhachev does have an effect on you. It did have an effect on him transferring ahead as a result of coming off a loss impacts your subsequent battle whether or not you prefer it or not.”
“Going into this battle with [Paulo] Costa the final loss affected me,” Whittaker continued. “I believe I may have carried out higher in opposition to Costa if I did not. have the nerves of dropping the battle earlier than and wanting to alter every thing up. You possibly can’t count on Volk to get in there and never be pondering, ‘Okay, I do not wish to get knocked out. Okay, I can not let this occur. I can not let a loss occur. I want to alter what occurred final battle.’ You possibly can attempt to persuade your self but it surely’s there. I say this solely from my private expertise… That Makhachev battle impacted the Topuria battle with no shadow of a doubt, for my part.”
