We had a drink with our girlfriends in Richmond before they watched their favourite star perform in a global coronation of the biggest pop star of our lifetime.
Anywhere you looked, people young and old wore bejeweled and bedazzled dresses for Taylor. She is a superstar of enormous global consequences.
Taylormania has spilled into a second night at the MCG, with 96,000 buzzing Swifties packing into the stadium on Saturday and the pop sensation declaring she felt like she had “won a contest” to be there. See the videos: https://t.co/mVHFNdOvij pic.twitter.com/drpvVetME6
— Herald Sun (@theheraldsun) February 17, 2024
We went and watched Alex Volkanovski at a different pub up the road full of mostly men in hats and one woman who was on what looked to be a third date with a second husband.
After Volk was knocked out, we spewed out onto Bridge Rd quickly only to be greeted with the fact that nobody knew that a long-reigning king, Australian-born, had been dethroned.
#AndNew@TopuriaIlia is the UFC FW Champion 🏆 pic.twitter.com/jaZc6JqIC3
— UFC_AUSNZ (@UFC_AUSNZ) February 18, 2024
And yet for us in that pub the stakes were as big as they were in the stadium up the road. Where they left euphoric and surrounded by like-minded Swifties who were just as excited by the surprise songs and couldn’t wait to talk about them, we left disappointed and unacknowledged.
Such is the lot of someone who worships a superstar whose stardom is confined to a lunchbox.
Volkanovski appeared to be the more relaxed man in the face of what looked to be yet another discount Conor McGregor. Topuria went even further than just using Conor lines. He parted his hair like Conor, he cut his beard like Conor, he even copied Conor’s back tattoo.
The Champ is here! 🏆@AlexVolkanovski cool, calm and collected.
📺📱#UFC298 | Order at Link in Bio pic.twitter.com/Ezgpzjit0T
— UFC_AUSNZ (@UFC_AUSNZ) February 18, 2024
Volk with his old man schtick and always Australian ethic of underplaying himself and the gravity of the situation seemed like the perfect antidote to Topuria’s reheated shenanigans. It appeared obvious that this wasn’t a McGregor v Aldo situation where McGregor took up residence in Aldo’s head and would only give the space back when his left hand put Aldo to sleep.
It seemed like Volk was perfectly built to beat the UFC’s handpicked successor. The set-up of the fight was classic combat sports: the young lion versus the grizzled legend. Usually, they book this type of fight as the young guy is peaking and the old guy is just starting to slide. You book this fight to give the young guy the credibility of the old guy’s name.
Think of Joshua v Klitschko or De La Hoya v Chavez or even McGregor v Aldo. But it doesn’t always work. Sometimes the old guy gets home. Think that first Stipe v Ngannou fight, for instance.
I truly felt that this fight was going to be one of those times.
When they walked out, I became even more confident.
Topuria came out looking like he was fighting for the UFC Featherweight championship. The gravity of the situation was written all over his face.
Volkanovski walked out with a smile and a billionaire. It was a king returning to the kingdom he had ruled for so long, even after failed invasions elsewhere. At featherweight, Volkanovski felt more comfortable than he did at lightweight and it showed.
𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙! 👑
The FW Champ @AlexVolkanovski is ready to silence the doubters! 🏆 #UFC298 pic.twitter.com/gaJazMnIaq
— UFC_AUSNZ (@UFC_AUSNZ) February 18, 2024
In the fight, it was clear that Volkanovski had brought a peashooter to a bazooka fight. Topuria’s power, as we all knew, was far greater than Volkanovski’s, especially in that right hand. But Volkanovski smartly circled away from Topuria’s right hand more often than he didn’t. When Topuria landed a big leg kick, Volkanovski went southpaw for a time. Then swapped back.
All the while he was landing shots methodically.
Volk looked like he always looked. He changed the picture in front of the younger man. He was outthinking the younger man. He wasn’t going to win on physicality alone and he knew it. He sought to confuse Topuria.
He probably snuck the first round, and was winning the second. Even if Topuria landed more significant blows, he landed very few of them. The old man was outworking and outthinking his younger counterpart.
https://twitter.com/nelkboys/status/1759235037453771093?s=20
Then it was over.
Volkanovski figured he was fighting a Tattaglia, a pimp. It was Barzini all along.
An atomic right hand, after a flurry of no consequence, landed on the button and turned off the lights. Topuria’s right hand, and his ability to hunt it down and walk his opponents into it, is reminiscent of a certain Irishman’s. I’ll give Ilia that.
After the pub celebrated Volkanovski’s walk out, danced along to ‘Man Down Under’, exclaimed at seeing Mark Zuckerberg, being there, and cheered every time Volk landed something of consequence, it was like someone took a vacuum to the place. Hand were on heads. Mouths were agape.
The third date in front of us couldn’t believe what they were seeing, though they were not deflated enough to remove their palms from each other’s derrieres.
The pub was silent. The fifth-longest championship reign in UFC men’s history was over. One of the greatest featherweight champions in history was finished. Our king had been dethroned.
In our world, something enormous has happened. But outside of Taylor Swift, there is no monoculture anymore. The global population can now be broken down into a series of disparate interests.
Alexander Volkanovski is a genuine superstar to a large sect of people, but leaving that pub after we all had our hearts ripped out, showed how small that sect is in the scheme of everyone.
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