Alexander
Volkanovski seemingly can’t pass on an opportunity to save an
Ultimate Fighting Championship card on short notice.
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Volkanovski revealed that he recently offered to step up to save
the upcoming UFC 303
card. Conor
McGregor and Michael
Chandler were originally scheduled to headline UFC 303 on June
29 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas before “Notorious” pulled out
due to a broken toe. Rumors of the fight potentially falling off
were afloat a week before it became official. Volkanovski was
prompt to raise his hand for a short-notice UFC 303 matchup as soon
as he heard those rumors.
“A lot happened with this card, obviously Conor
McGregor was meant to be on it. I did put my hand
up,”Volkanovski recently said on his YouTube channel. “I said, ‘You
need a guy?’ I got told, obviously we all heard the whispers as you
did… Whispers that they were looking for someone to maybe replace
him. So, I was like, ‘Hey, you need someone? You know a guy.’”
The last time Volkanovski stepped up for a short-notice UFC
headliner, it didn’t end well for him. Volkanovski replaced
Charles
Oliveira on 11 days’ notice for a rematch against Islam
Makhachev at UFC 294 in October 2023. Volkanovski had fought
Makhachev to a gritty unanimous decision loss in their initial
encounter at UFC 284 in February 2023. While Volkanovski had since
bounced back with a TKO win over Yair
Rodriguez, many believed it was too soon for “The Great” to
rematch Makhachev. Volkanovski went on to suffer a brutal head-kick
knockout in the first round.
Volkanovski then went on to lose his featherweight title in another
brutal knockout loss against Ilia
Topuria at UFC 298 this past February. In the aftermath of the
loss, there was speculation that it was too quick a turnaround for
Volkanovski from his knockout loss against Makhachev.
Even the UFC advised Volkanovski to cool things off for a bit when
he offered to save the day this time around. However, Volkanovski
respects the UFC’s call, as he believes they were concerned about
his health.
“Some people think I’m mad but eh, I’m back into training now and
excited to get back in there,” Volkanovski said. “So, that’s all it
takes, just a little thing like that and I’ll put my hand up. But
it wasn’t me, I didn’t get the call back. UFC were sitting there
going, ‘You know you’re a savage but we’ll let you know if we need
you,’ – type thing… And they said, “Look you know, let’s just have
a bit of a break.’ So they were obviously respecting that, so, good
on them for that. Even though I kept reminding them every day,
like, ‘I’m being serious, let me know.’ But they were sticking to
their guns obviously, thinking of looking after me. So, you gotta
give them respect for that.”