The UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski seems to have a chip on his shoulder. He’s sick of fans dismissing his achievements in the Octagon, and wants the chance to finally take a title fight to his home country of Australia. Ideally, he wants to fight for the lightweight title against the winner of Makhachev vs Oliveira, as he revealed on The MMA Hour.
“Would you say I’ve been fairly treated as champ the whole time? From fans, UFC, anyone? It’s pretty easy to understand. A lot of people wouldn’t have wanted me to be champion. That’s why I looked at the camera and said, ‘What now? None of you can say s***. Shut your mouth.’ So that was what it was about. And that was to a lot of people, not just fans. It wasn’t me angry, it was just like, ‘Now you can jump on board. Now you can act like you are all about it,’ when clearly a lot of them weren’t. Maybe it was a chip on my shoulder. That’s why I wanted that third fight for a long time.
Volkanovski Wants To Fight For Lightweight Title in Australia in 2023
Right now, I feel like I’m in a position where I can call the shots, and I can have those conversations that I didn’t feel like I could have before, when now I can. Now I’m getting that respect from everyone, which I think is deserved.”
Volkanovski is currently recovering from a hand injury sustained in his last fight against Max Holloway, but he’s raring to go as soon as possible.
“I want to be active, and obviously this slowed me down, and [the UFC is] coming to Australia in the first quarter of next year, and I need to defend my belt, or I need to fight in Australia. I think I deserve that […]
The winner [of Makhachev vs Oliveira] in Australia, why not?” he said. “I think some of them might sit there and be like, ‘Oh, why should we fight over there?’ Listen, I deserve it. Pretty much every single one of my fights has been overseas.
I’ve defended all of my belts not on home territory this whole time. So I’m sure whoever wins the belt, they can miss out here and there as well. So we’ll see. At the end of the day, I’m the type of guy, I’ll fight anywhere – I just think we deserve to fight here.”
Will we see Alexander “The Great” claim a lightweight title before a home crowd? Let us know what you think in the comments.
