Photo by Paul Kane/Zuffa LLC
The featherweight champ is a lot more welcoming of a superfight with Henry Cejudo, now that it wouldn’t hold up another division.
It’s hard to think that the best time to make a fight is after one of the two people involved has already retired, but UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski is – at the very least – making the case that it makes more sense for him. ‘The Great’ is currently set to fight Max Holloway as one of the three title fights atop UFC 251 this July. But, questions about a bout between he and former flyweight/bantamweight double-champ Henry Cejudo still linger.
And even though all signs point to Cejudo having hung up his gloves for the foreseeable future, for Volkanovski, the fact that Cejudo would no longer be holding up the bantamweight division to take him on at 145 lbs makes the idea of their superfight that much more enticing.
“His name was getting mentioned everywhere, but it was never run through me,” Volkanovski told The Score in a recent interview. “…But I started maybe considering that fight if it was offered to me because of the fact that he’s no longer in the bantamweight division, flyweight division,” Volkanovski said.
“Now I’m not holding up any divisions – I hate that, I hate people holding up divisions. So if he was to move up to try and go for the third title, holding up two divisions, I would’ve been like, ‘Nah, you’re dreaming, I think that’s shit.’”
There doesn’t appear to be any actual talk in the air of the two men meeting in the Octagon any time soon. But, if they were ever going to, Volkanovski sounds supremely confident that he’d dominate the former Olympic gold medalist.
“Obviously, his wrestling isn’t gonna be a factor against me. I’m just too smart, as well,” Volkanovski explained. “I’m smart, I’m fast, and I hit hard. I’ve got all the tools to make it hard for anyone, especially someone that’s a division lower than me.”
UFC 251 takes place on July 11th, in Abu Dhabi. The event is expected to be headlined by a welterweight title fight between Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns. Volkanovski vs. Holloway 2 is penciled in as the co-main event, with Petr Yan set to take on Jose Aldo for Cejudo’s vacated bantamweight title immediately preceding. Stay tuned to Bloody Elbow for more news and updates as the UFC 251 fight card approaches.