Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) recently announced the upcoming UFC 312 pay-per-view (PPV) event, booked for Sat., Feb. 8, 2025 at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia. As you might expect, former featherweight champion and hometown hero, Alex Volkanovski, is planning to compete.
But only for the 145-pound title.
“Anything with gold in it and I’ll be happy,” Volkanovski told reporters at the UFC 312 kickoff press conference. “That will just lock me in for whoever wins that anyway. So, even if it’s the interim that’s still a big one. I’d say it’d be an exciting one with [Diego] Lopes, I’d say, if that was gonna happen. If not, it’s Max or Ilia.”
Volkanovski plans to storm the cage at UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi to stake his claim for the next featherweight title shot. That puts “The Great” in a championship rematch regardless of who prevails between current division kingpin, Ilia Topuria, and former 145-pound titleholder, Max Holloway.
“Oh, of course, you know what I mean? That’s the best way to build up your next fight,” Volkanovski told Submission Radio. “Especially when you’re pretty much guaranteed. There’s only very little things that could get in the way. I doubt that happens so get me in there, let’s amp it up and call the date here in February as well.”
Volkanovski is 3-0 against Holloway and 0-1 against Topuria.
“I’m in a position now where I want to fight in Sydney and I want fights that excite me,” Volkanovski said. “Fighting for a belt excites me. Fighting some contender just for content? Flat. Not exciting. What excites me? Money, big fights and gold. You know what I mean? So if he’s wearing the gold, cool. He’s done an incredible job obviously in his last fight. So right now he’s in an incredible position. So yeah, it’d be a big fight. Even though we’ve already had three fights, I feel like the fourth fight will even be bigger. You would never have thought that a year ago.”
A lot on the line at UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi.