UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski is unsure of how much longer former champ and rival Max Holloway's durability is going to last following his unanimous decision win over Yair Rodriguez at UFC Vegas 42 last Saturday night.
Volkanovski spoke with journalist Ariel Helwani on the latest edition of The MMA Hour and discussed Holloway's performance against Rodriguez, believing that there's eventually going to come a time where the Hawaiian star is going to have to pay the piper if you will for his fighting style.
“Man, Max eats a lot of shots,” Volkanovski said (h/t MMA Fighting). “He’s a volume striker, but he’s happy to eat one to give a couple. But, I mean, how long can that last? I’m telling you, that chin’s going to go soon. It is going to go soon. You cannot cop that much damage. Yeah, they’re talking about 3000 strikes he’s [landed], which is incredible. Clap for that. But he’s probably in the 1000s or 2000s of absorption as well. There you go, that’s not healthy. And Conor [McGregor] touched on that actually. Conor makes a good point. You talk about being a boxer — it’s hit and not get hit. That’s what makes the best boxer. So, you look at the numbers he’s hitting a lot of numbers, but let’s look at other numbers. Let’s look at ratios. Let’s look at how many strikes they’re landing to not landing. It doesn’t get more impressive than mine, I don’t think. I think mine would be right up there. But again, you want to talk numbers, let’s talk real numbers.”
He continued on to give Holloway his respect for his abilities as a fighter but again warned that he thinks Max's chin will go sooner rather than later. Volkanovski also made it clear that he's not going to wait around for a trilogy bout with Holloway and doesn't care about the narratives around Holloway wanting supposedly bigger money fights instead of completing the pair's trilogy.
“At the end of the day, I’ll give it to Max, he’s a gamer,” Volkanovski said. “I’m sitting there trying to knock him but at the same time, you’ve got to give him credit. It’s entertaining. Don’t get me wrong, watching that, it’s great to watch. But, at the same time, you can’t do that forever, and that that chin is going to go. Let’s see if it goes [in] the next one. I’m going to be looking for it. I don’t know what he’s pushing but I guarantee that’s what the UFC is going to bring to me [the trilogy fight], and yeah, we’ll see what happens from there. But let’s stop the bullsh*t. If you want it, come get it. If not, we move on.”
We've got fireworks --
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