Jacob Volkmann is finally set to face off against fellow lightweight Shane Roller at UFC on FX: Browne vs. Bigfoot in front of a hometown crowd.
Just over a month ago, Volkmann, Roller and many other UFC fighters were being told they’d have to live to fight another day with the cancellation of UFC 151.
“It kind of sucked because I was ready to fight,” Volkmann told Bleacher Report.
Luckily for Volkmann, the UFC was able to reschedule his match with Roller just four weeks after the originally scheduled bout.
The cancellation of UFC 151 back in August lead to a lot of backlash against current light heavyweight Jon Jones by the fans, media and UFC president Dana White himself.
Despite challenger Dan Henderson being the one who had to pull out with injury, people felt that Jones should have taken the replacement fight offered to him by the UFC, which was none other than former middleweight challenger Chael Sonnen. Vokmann isn’t one to side with Jones on the topic either.
“I think he [Jones] should’ve taken the fight, there’s no reason he shouldn’t have” Volkmann said. “He had a whole training camp leading up to that fight and the guy [Dan Henderson] gets injured and then someone else comes along to fight him on short notice, there’s no reason he shouldn’t have fought. I consider Chael Sonnen the true champion at light heavyweight.”
Sonnen would probably be quick to agree with Volkmann as Mr. Sonnen called himself the true middleweight champion for quite sometime despite the first loss to Anderson Silva.
The cancellation of UFC 151: Jones vs. Henderson lead many people to believe that the UFC was maybe putting on too many shows and spreading its roster thin.
“They’re not thin, I don’t know what people are thinking, there are so many fighters that are only getting two fights a year,” he said.
Volkmann is right, there are a lot of guys who are only fighting one to two times a year. The problem probably lies with the fact that the UFC hasn’t built up enough of its roster with the fans, so it ends up being the top guys who are spread too thin.
For Volkmann though, he is just happy to have a fight so soon after the cancellation, and despite having to put in four extra weeks of hard camp, he’s ready to go.
Volkmann is coming off his first loss in six fight since dropping to lightweight. He lost to English fighter Paul Sass via submission, something Sass was used to doing until last weekend where he lost by submission himself.
One would wonder why Volkmann—a solid wrestler—ended up on the ground with someone as crafty as Sass, and Volkmann himself hopes to avoid making mistakes like this going forward.
“I had a game plan and right as soon as I got into the fight the game plan kind of just fell apart. I played his game, I landed in his guard and fought up in there which is not what I wanted to do at the beginning. The main thing I learned is just to stay with the game plan,” Volkmann said. “I wanted to stay standing with [Sass], but we locked up and I was like fine I’ll take him to the ground.”
Roller has a collegiate wrestling background himself, and similarly to Sass he has quite a few submission victories to his name. Roller has had a bit of a rocky road in the UFC, and Volkmann hopes to exploit that tonight.
“I need to (get) on him and get him on the ground and wear him out,” Volkmann said. “As soon as I do that, he should break, he has been broken.”
We will see if Volkmann, as a former University of Minnesota alum, breaks Roller or not later tonight on Fuel TV. He’ll definitely have the crowd behind him for this fight.
Leon Horne enjoys all sports and has a particular interest in MMA; give him a follow on Twitter for more information and keep an eye out for interesting interviews and news,Follow @Leon_Horne
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