Chan Sung Jung, perhaps best known as “The Korean Zombie”, knows where it went wrong when he took on Jose Aldo way back at UFC 163. Since then, he has been slowly, but surely, rebuilding, and is now only weeks away from another title challenge at UFC 273. This time, he’ll take on Australian featherweight champ Alexander “The Great” Volkanovski, and the Zombie says things will be very different this time around.
Eddie Cha, head coach to Chan Sung Jung, told The MMA Hour while translating for Sung Jung that his star pupil simply wasn’t ready for Jose Aldo at UFC 163, but he’s adapted his game plan and fighting style for the modern era.
How The Korean Zombie Bounced Back To Fight for the Featherweight Title
“When he fought Aldo, he wasn’t actually ready at that time. He said nine years ago, nobody could beat Jose Aldo. Nobody even thought about beating him, nobody entertained that [idea]. And he’s so happy he was fortunate enough to fight him, because he has the experience now to actually step up and win a title shot.”
The Korean Zombie was once best known as a brawling, all-in fighter. He moved training camps after the Aldo loss, and began to incorporate a more measured approach to fighting. When facing one of the highest fight IQs in the game in Alexander Volkanovski, this new, more methodical approach will see its greatest test yet.
“If he thinks of it as just like a fight, like a brawl, and just scrapping in there, then he can actually train in Korea. But now he looks at this as a sport, where he’s actually competing, looking to win rounds.
We always talk about him as, we’re trying to win seconds, sequences. We’re trying to win minutes — minutes will win rounds, rounds wins fights. So his perspective on competing, fighting, is totally, totally different [now at Fight Ready].”
Alexander Volkanovski is currently ranked #3 in the UFC men’s pound-for-pound rankings, having recently dispatched Brian Ortega in a five-round slugfest. Volkanovski won the UFC featherweight championship from Max Holloway in December 2019, and has since defended it twice.
He will seek to make a third consecutive title defense this April. Volkanovski’s last – and only – career loss in MMA came in 2013, the same year as Chan Sung Jung’s loss to Jose Aldo.
Will The Korean Zombie find featherweight redemption against one of the UFC’s most dangerous fighters? Let us know in the comments.
