{"id":369683,"date":"2024-02-21T22:51:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T23:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=369683"},"modified":"2024-02-22T01:03:30","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T01:03:30","slug":"curious-volkanovski-claim-after-stunning-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=369683","title":{"rendered":"Curious Volkanovski claim after stunning defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\ufefflexander Volkanovski<\/a> is still reeling from his defeat to Ilia Topuria<\/a> – but the Australian legend's coach has issued a strong claim ahead of a potential rematch.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old was knocked out towards the end of the second round at UFC 298<\/a>, ending his dominant reign as featherweight champion, which had previously seen him overcome some of the division's all-time greats in Max Holloway and Jose Aldo. \ufeff<\/p>\n

Volkanovski was just four months removed from another devastating loss to lightweight champion Islam Makhachev<\/a>, \ufeffbut returned to the octagon in a bid to remain active and continue his stellar run at the 145lb (65kg) weight class.<\/p>\n

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Despite being dropped in two-straight bouts, Volkanovski's head coach Joe Lopez claimed there could have easily been a different result against Topuria, who took down the Aussie with a brutal flurry of punches to become the new king of the featherweights.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\ufeff"Alex was going through the gameplan, was finding his range and starting to touch him up," he told the Daily Mail in the wake of the fight.<\/p>\n

"I was disappointed [by the result], knowing that Alex has a much better skill set. <\/p>\n

"We knew coming into this fight he had a puncher's chance \u2014 and he got that punch."<\/p>\n

Volkanovski's overall career record inside the cage has now fallen to \ufeff26-4, but his loss at the hands of the Spanish rising star was the first setback at featherweight.<\/p>\n

And while the comments from Lopez indicate Volkanovski could have been on top if the fight progressed into a third round, former UFC bantwamweight champion TJ Dillashaw questioned the tactics employed by the Shellharbour native.<\/p>\n

"For me, I don't know what Volk's game plan was – I'd like to be in his head before I do a complete judgement of it," TJ Dillashaw said on the Jaxxon Podcast.<\/p>\n

"I know he was scared of the power. I could tell by the way he was fighting, he was very scared of Topuria's power \u2014 which he should be, to an extent.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"He's never fought like that in the past. The first two rounds, all he was doing was throwing kicks. Every time Topuria would get close, he was just backing up and leaning away. Soon as I saw that, I was like, 'Damn, he's gonna get caught.' <\/p>\n

"He was fighting scared. He was worried about the power… That's where he went wrong. He was afraid of his power and fought scared."<\/p>\n

With a rematch in his sights, Volkanovski could earn a shot at redemption later this year if the UFC opt to go in that direction, but it's expected he will need plenty of time to recuperate due to the nature of his past two bouts.<\/p>\n

The likes of \ufeffYair Rodriguez and the previously-mentioned Holloway could be in the mix for a shot at Topuria, while the ever-clouded future of Conor McGregor<\/a> could also factor into plans for the company's fastest-rising star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A\ufefflexander Volkanovski is still reeling from his defeat to Ilia Topuria – but the Australian legend's coach has issued a strong claim ahead of a […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":368644,"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\/369683"}],"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=369683"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369687,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369683\/revisions\/369687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/368644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=369683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=369683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=369683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}