Alex Volkanovski has revealed what led to his success in his fight against Jose Aldo earlier this month at UFC 237.
Alex Volkanovski has discussed his one-sided unanimous decision win over Jose Aldo last month at UFC 237, stating he ‘puzzled’ the ‘over-reactive’ former featherweight champion.
Volkanovski (20-1) extended his unbeaten run to seven in the UFC with the win over Aldo. Despite being the clear number one contender at featherweight, Volkanovski was snubbed for the next title shot, something his manager recently described as ‘devastating.’
Talking to MMA Fighting’s Luke Thomas on The MMA Hour, Volkanovski explained how he shut down Aldo and never allowed him to put anything significant together in the fight.
“I knew a lot of people were saying going into that fight, ‘watch the leg kicks,’ ‘watch his counter,’ ‘he’s so explosive,’ and stuff like that. I knew that, but it’s easy to just say you’re gonna hit someone if I’m standing there, fair enough. But when I had him so worried about what I was doing, I just had him puzzled and you could see that. He was always adjusting, always trying to set himself up, and before he knew it he couldn’t pull the trigger.”
After his win over Aldo, Volkanovski was admitted to a local hospital in after unexpectedly picking up a blood infection. The 30-year-old continued to explain what led to his success in the fight with Aldo.
“I actually was trying to draw him into pulling the trigger, I think he noticed that so that’s why he wasn’t pulling the trigger at all. But at the same time, even with the clinch work and stuff like that, if I shot in and he stuffed the takedown, I was going to come right back in. That was just another thing for him to worry about. It was just to have a puzzle in front of him, have him so worried about things that I’m doing. He’s very, very over-reactive, he reacts heavily to everything.”