Alex Volkanovski is Fighting Nature

Alex Volkanovski is Fighting Nature

GuyWhoLikesSport GuyWhoLikesSport

The ecosystem of the fight business is unique among nature’s food chains, but it is almost as certain.

A young guy beats a few notable names and takes a piece of their legacies on his way up the chain, he gets to the top of the food chain, gets old, then the next young guy takes a piece of his legacy on the next guy’s way up.

That process happened a couple of times over Muhammad Ali’s career. At the start of his reign, his wins over notable names like Hank Cooper and Archie Moore, then over the great Sonny Liston, solidified him as a star because he beat other stars.

The difference between Ali and most normal people is that the fight that was set up to anoint a new king – The Rumble in the Jungle – didn’t go the way that nature intended (until Spinks and Holmes).

Ali knocked out the would-be king George Foreman in one of the greatest Nobody Believes in Us/The Old Guy’s Still Got It performances ever.

Oasis has a chance to get on the podium.

Fight history is dotted with Rumble in the Jungle moments. Mosley beating Margarito springs to mind, Poirier beating St Denis does too.

But they’re rare.

Ilia Topuria’s wins against Volkanovski and Holloway are the norm.

Alex Volkanovski needs a rare win on Sunday afternoon.

After being knocked out in his last two fights by Topuria and Islam Makhachev – now two of the top lightweights in the world – Volkanovski has been given one last chance at UFC featherweight gold against Diego Lopes.

Given Volk was knocked out by Topuria in his last fight, I was initially surprised that they threw him a title shot instantly after Topuria moved up in weight and vacated his title.

Then I looked at the rest of the featherweights, realised Volk had beaten them all, and understood. Lopes is the last man standing.

At 30, Lopes isn’t young and his record isn’t impeccable. He would be, in all honesty, a weak champion for a UFC that is full of weak champions and is a generally watered down product.

However, he is on a five-fight streak in the UFC that includes a dominant win over Brian Ortega.

That makes him the UFC’s best option featherweight gold. More than that, the UFC knows their only way to make him a credible champion is to feed him a fading Volkanovski.

They’ve put a fight with essentially the same narrative infrastructure, though with lower stakes, second on the card with Pimblett v Chandler.

The UFC knows that this is the lifeblood of the fight food chain.

Can Volkanovski fight off nature?

Maybe it was my love of Volk talking but I really thought he was going to beat Topuria.

The only time in the recent past that I have been more wrong more upsettingly about something was my pick for the 2024 US Election.

But now Topuria, with his atomic hands, has moved out of the division, having taken the legacies of Volkanovski and Holloway with him.

He’s now eyeing a potential fight with Islam Makhachev for lightweight gold.

Lopes is a different, worse, beast.

The biggest issue for Volkanovski recently has been his chin. Prior to being knocked out by a Makhachev kick in a fight he took on 12 days’ notice, Volkanovski’s whiskers had been cast-iron.

Even great chins crack and that kick may have cracked Volkanovski’s.

Before the second knockout in the Topuria fight, where Volk had time to prepare, he looked terrific. He won the first round against Topuria and generally had Topuria looking confused before Topuria loaded up the bazooka.

Lopes doesn’t have a bazooka like Topuria’s.

In his six fights in the UFC, Lopes has two KOs against Pat Sabatini and Sodiq Yusuff. Despite tattooing Ortega throughout the fight, he couldn’t put him away.

If Volk’s chin can stand up like it used to, Lopes is a Tattaglia. There’s no way he can outfight Alexander.

He doesn’t have the generational *something* that you need to beat a legend like Volk even in his diminished state.

Even if Volk wins this, it feels like it’s eventually going to end badly for him. Maybe it already has with those two losses and I’m late to the worst party in the world.

And if we are there, and a loss against this level of opposition confirms it, I hope he gives it away.

I don’t want Volk to be a name on the next guy’s resume.

I don’t want to watch the end of another icon’s career through my fingertips.

But I don’t think we’re there.

Not yet.

I believe can reach into the wayback machine one last time, like Ali did when he beat Kenny Norton in the rematch.

One more. Go Volk.