{"id":340858,"date":"2023-10-22T02:18:23","date_gmt":"2023-10-22T02:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=340858"},"modified":"2023-10-22T03:01:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-22T03:01:45","slug":"volk-opens-up-on-mental-health-struggles-in-raw-admission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=340858","title":{"rendered":"Volk opens up on mental health struggles in raw admission"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\ufeff vulnerable Alexander Volkanovski<\/a> has opened up on his mental health struggles after a brutal loss to Islam Makhachev<\/a> in UFC<\/a> 294.<\/p>\n

Volkanovski agreed to the fight with 11 days notice after Charles Oliveira \ufeffsuffered an injury and admitted to being underprepared, having to shed 12kg to make weight.<\/p>\n

The featherweight champion's last fight before the Makhachev loss was against Yair Rodr\u00edguez\ufeff in July, with Volkanovski choking back tears as he spoke about the impact the time between the fights had on his mental health.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Volkanovski destroyed in brutal first round KO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> English hearts broken by clutch world champions<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Football world mourns death of Man United icon<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

"I don't want to sit here and make excuses … I'm a big believer in preparation but I back myself, so that's the decision I made. I could've made better decisions, he's not someone you should be taking a short notice (fight) with but I needed it," he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"A lot of people will say it's for the money but it's much more than that. It is hard, it really is hard for athletes, I never thought I'd struggle with it but for some reason when I wasn't fighting or in camp … I was just doing my head in, I needed a fight.<\/p>\n

"This opportunity came up and I'll be honest, I wasn't training as much as I should've but I had to do it, I had to take it.<\/p>\n

"I'm telling myself it's meant to be, I was struggling a little bit not fighting, doing my head in.<\/p>\n

"I don't know how, everything's fine, I've got a beautiful family, but I think you just need to keep busy. That's why I ask the UFC to keep me busy. I need to be in camp otherwise I'm going to do my head in."<\/p>\n

Volkanovski was dominated in one round, with \ufeffMakhachev knocking him down with a brutal kick to the head.<\/p>\n

The Aussie tried to withstand a barrage of hammer punches but eventually the referee stepped in and declared a knockout result.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old admitted fighting Makhachev at short notice may have been a "silly decision".\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"Volkanovski<\/p>\n

"I\ufeff just needed to get in camp and this fight came up and I thought yeah it's meant to be, let's do it," he said.<\/p>\n

"I thought that was what it was but maybe it was just a silly decision under those circumstances. They're decisions you don't want to make against someone like Islam, I'm not taking anything away from him."<\/p>\n

Having struggled with his mental health while being absent from the ring, Volkanovski stated it was "something I never understood" and claimed to have not suffered from any problems before.<\/p>\n

The Wollongong-born UFC great will likely next fight in January and \ufeffbelieves the result will "kick me back into gear".<\/p>\n

"Maybe this happened to give me a kick up the arse for being silly, maybe it won't happen again now, \ufeffmaybe that's what it was," he said.<\/p>\n

"Maybe this'll kick me back into gear, get back in there and go back to featherweight division and kick arse there."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A\ufeff vulnerable Alexander Volkanovski has opened up on his mental health struggles after a brutal loss to Islam Makhachev in UFC 294. Volkanovski agreed to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":340860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340858"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":340863,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340858\/revisions\/340863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/340860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}