In the 3-0 Volkanovski vs Holloway trilogy, the second fight stands out as the one that “Blessed” seemed to look the best. Some commentators, including UFC president Dana White, even declared that Holloway won the fight, despite the judges’ scorecards finding in Volkanovski’s favor. At the post-fight press conference at UFC 276, Volkanovski revealed why he looked so lackluster in their first rematch: USADA came knocking in the middle of the night.
“Now I can say it, because I went and done that to Max. That second fight with Max, when I tell you I didn’t turn up, there’s a few things that happened. You obviously don’t know about USADA coming wake me up four hours before I had to get up, which is ridiculous. Don’t know how that happened and how that could happen. I’m over that.
Volkanovski Reveals The USADA Situation That Hurt His Performance For Holloway 2
I ended up doing silly things as well. I took melatonin tablets thinking — it was just silly, and woke up like drunk. Not drunk, but [not right either]. So it was rough, it was rough, but I’m not the type of guy to make excuses, I’m telling you now because I got to shut everyone up, and now I’m telling this. I didn’t turn up, now he’s going to believe that because of what I just did tonight. That’s why I was so confident going into this one. I didn’t turn up, he turned up, and he still couldn’t beat me.
It was halfway through my sleep. They woke us all up and said that we’re gonna test him. Obviously my coaches and management were like, ‘What do you mean? What the hell?’ Obviously I woke up during the night to piss, [so] I couldn’t fill it up. I had to water load. The story goes on. I had to drink water so I could hurry up and piss so I could go to bed.”
On Saturday night, Volkanovski delivered arguably the finest performance of his career in a one-sided five-round affair. He’s been gunning for the title of featherweight GOAT for a while, and maintained that position following his landmark victory.
“It’s not up to me, but I think you’d be a bit of a fool to not have me in conversations. Look at what I’m doing, look at the résumé, but, again, that’s not up to me. We’re doing good. We’re pretty impressive. What do you guys think? I know people are being pretty biased. I’ve talked about that, a lot of my speech was to stand up. Maybe some of you as well, stand up some of the haters.”
What do you think of this revelation? Let us know in the comments.
