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00:00Welcome back to Against the Cage. Scott Fontana here again with Alexander Volkanovsky ahead of
00:04his UFC 333 featherweight title defense against Mulsar Ivoyev on Saturday, October 24th in Abu
00:11Dhabi. Alex, we have a lot to talk about regarding Ivoyev. This is a big fight. This is an interesting
00:16fight, but you brought up a fighter this week that I've got to ask you about, and that's Justin
00:22Gaethje, right? You floated the idea of a super fight next year. You and him for the lightweight
00:28title, you getting one more crack at that, and then afterward you both walk off into the sunset.
00:34So the question that came to mind for me is, does this mean you're seriously considering
00:38hanging them up next year, hanging up the gloves? Yeah, look, it's just, I'm an honest guy. I can't
00:47see myself doing this for another 10 years, right? Even for something like that, I'd be happy to be
00:55like, all right, let's do it. Let's, you know what I mean? For that storyline, I would. Otherwise,
00:59I'll keep fighting and just play each fight as it goes. That's sort of how I am right now. It's
01:04how
01:04I was even the last fight. So again, a lot of people would be like, oh, should he be talking
01:08like that? But I did last fight. I did against Lopez in Sydney, where a lot of people would have
01:14thought the same thing. And here we are again. And here I am about to fight ever or ever,
01:19an undefeated fighter. And I plan on going out there and doing my thing, coming out in pretty
01:26good condition and going again. You know what I mean? So it's, I'm just, I just know that we're
01:32obviously at the back end of our career. And it's not like I'm in a position where I need to
01:38fight.
01:39Like, I don't. I'm doing this because I can. And I'm playing each fight as it goes, which is,
01:44you know, I'm lucky and blessed to be in a position that work like this. So, but yeah,
01:49that would be, would be pretty cool. I was just thinking, I don't think that's ever been done.
01:54Imagine like, you know, super fighters, like this suckers, both our divisions, there's a
02:00crazy stacked. So if we were to, you know, because I know Gaethje was thinking of,
02:05you know, is he going to fight again and whatnot? I was like, yeah, maybe after this,
02:11imagine that. Imagine if we just go, all right, let's go fight and then let the divisions sort
02:17themselves out, which I think would be pretty exciting whether they're doing, they're probably
02:21not doing tournaments, but imagine tournaments or they just got two guys, two of the main guys
02:26of each division fighting while we just go do our thing and a little send off like that.
02:31I feel like that's a pretty cool story, never been done, but it's two divisions where you
02:37probably can do that. Like if you look at the lightweight division, there's so many, you
02:42know what I mean? There's so many guys that we like, it's not like some divisions where
02:46if the champ was gone and then two guys fight for a vacant belt, they're just like, oh, this
02:51doesn't seem right. Like, you know what I mean? It doesn't seem like a title fight, but in our
02:56divisions, that wouldn't be the case. And they've got a lot of exciting guys that I'm
03:01sure the fans and even the UFC wouldn't mind fighting anyway. So imagine that. I feel
03:08like I just threw that out there for a bit of a lap. I've seen that it took, it got
03:12a
03:12bit of traction.
03:13Got a little life of its own, sure, Dan.
03:15Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, well, I mean, we'll see. But at the moment, obviously, I'm
03:19focusing on Evloev. And yeah, I'm going to do my thing this week or next weekend.
03:25Of course, of course. Now, look, obviously you are going to do your thing in that fight,
03:29but there's something else that you're involved in right now. And that's possibly one of the
03:33reasons why you're talking like you don't really need to fight anymore. You are in a
03:37major motion picture, the new Street Fighter film. I had asked you a few years back, you
03:42know, are you thinking about doing anything, you know, with Hollywood or something like
03:45that? And you said, no, you know, not while I'm fighting, you know, now you've managed
03:48to do both, right? You're fighting this weekend, right after the weekend, right after your movie
03:53comes out. How did kind of balancing this come together? Because it wasn't something
03:58that was really like you were pushing for.
04:01Yeah, it was just a good timing, good timing with it all. When we filmed, that was before
04:07the Lopez fight, the last Lopez fight in Sydney, like literally just before camp started. And
04:13it was, I only play, you know, like a smaller role. It's not a massive role where I needed
04:17to be there for months. That's why, because we knew we'll be fighting. So we told him
04:23like, you know, we don't have a heap of time. And yeah, again, as you said, and as I said
04:30back then, it's not something that I'm going to take too serious because I'm a full-time
04:34fighter, right? That's what I'm going to do. But in saying that, I'm doing a great job
04:40and I'm in a position now where I can sort of still dabble in things while I'm doing
04:48the fighting. Because right now, I can't be doing what I was doing five years ago. The
04:52schedule that I used to do five years ago, training all year round, doing three, four
04:57sessions a day, like all year. I mean, that's going to be more detrimental to me at this age,
05:04if anything. So a good way of doing it is like I can find the perfect amount of training
05:09that's going to keep me sharp, keep me on, keep me still excited for the game and still
05:15learning and fit enough. But then like, what else is important? Family, but not only that,
05:21building the brand and things outside of fighting. I'm in a good position now where I can
05:28stop being effective with those things, but still being so effective with the fighting.
05:33I couldn't do that four years ago, five years ago, because that would have been detrimental
05:37to my career. I wouldn't be in the position I am now. I wouldn't know what I know now. I
05:42wouldn't
05:42be the fighter I am now if I was like that. But now, it's a great time for me to
05:47be able to put
05:48energy here and there, which, yeah, again, for someone that's so, like, obviously, so experienced
05:57and at 38 years old. I feel like, yeah, I can't be doing the hours, spending the hours that I
06:04used to
06:04in the gym. Sure, sure. But obviously, you have spent many hours in the gym perfecting for this
06:10one. I know how serious you've taken it. In camp, in camp, the hours are the same. So in camp,
06:16like, you know, you're going there and you're preparing for the fight. So there needs to be a
06:20little more extreme, but that doesn't leave room for anything else. So that's why, you know,
06:26so like for me to, when I'm in camp, I can't be dabbling. That's why you haven't seen me do
06:32any
06:32cooking, not much cooking with Volk. A lot of that stuff's already been filmed. Maybe something here
06:37and there where other people are doing most of cooking for us and I'm not eating it. You don't
06:41see me really running around too much in camp. I don't have the time for that because recovery needs
06:46to be key. And then the rest of it is just training, training and recovering and eating.
06:52So, but outside of a camp, for sure, like, you know, I can't just be going there, just going
06:59through the motions. And I mean, I'll, I'll be over this sport if I was going to spend four hours
07:04a
07:05day outside of camp, you know, still, you know, this, that many years later, I feel like I'll lose
07:13the passion for the, for the sport, if that was the case. Sure. Sure. And obviously it's
07:17still very much. I don't know if the body would hold up if I could, I did that as well.
07:22And it does seem like you have both the passion and, and I'm sure you're, you're ready to go
07:26and your body's ready to go too. You've got a very tough opponent in front of you. There's a lot
07:30of kind of, this is an interesting matchup because people are looking at this as very balanced.
07:35Like there's a lot of people wondering who's going to win on each side. It's very intriguing
07:40in that sense. Ivoev, you know, he's unique, right? Because he comes to this one 10 and
07:450 UFC record, but without a single fight that ended inside the distance. This is a very unique
07:51case here. When you look at something like that, or the fact that he's not been finishing
07:56guys, it's been eight years since he finished anybody. Does that kind of embolden your ability
08:00to create your own offense and create your own exchanges? Because maybe there's less fear
08:06or less concern about what he can do back in terms of stopping the fight?
08:11I mean, yeah, there's a definitely, there's definitely some truth to that. You know,
08:18it's not like a Lopez where you know that, all right, if I'm going to be overly aggressive,
08:22you know, big, powerful shots are coming back and he's just going to eat them, you know,
08:27take them and then give them at the same time, which you just can't be that careless
08:31with him. And you can't be careless with anyone like in this sport. Even Mobza, even though
08:37he hasn't got a finish, if I go out careless, yeah, I can catch him, but then I'm putting
08:40myself in a position to get caught as well. But can I be a little more effective on the
08:45feet? Can I maybe be that little bit more aggressive? Yeah, for sure. You know, you can
08:51be. And we know what he wants to, we know he wants to wrestle and, but I'm going to be
08:55in his face and be like, try and wrestle me. See if, you know, and even if you do grab
08:59a hip or grab a leg or even get me down, try and hold me. Let's see, let's see if
09:04you, after you do shoot, even the first time, let's see if you want to do it again. After
09:10the second or third time, let's see if you want to do it the fourth time. Like it's, I'm
09:14going to be able to defend all day. I mean, even if you do get them down, like I'm going
09:19to be smiling like I was even with Islam, a big, strong, dangerous guy like Islam. And
09:26you've seen that I was never panicking, never fazed and in a position where I'll get back
09:32up and I'll be in your face. And then we've seen, you've seen how effective I can be in
09:37that case. And you can see how effective I can be later on in the fight when that's
09:41happening. A lot of people just can't handle that type of chaos and that type of stress
09:47like I do. So, um, I'm going to bring the fight to, to mob's though. That's for sure.
09:52Sure. Sure. And look, obviously I think everyone understands just what you said,
09:56that he's going to go for takedowns. He's going to mix in the wrestling, something he did not do
10:00almost at all in that last fight he had against Lerone Murphy. That was, that was a very surprising
10:04performance. He did get the win, right? He, the striking was still enough there, but when you got
10:09to watch 25 minutes of him, almost entirely striking, what did you, what did you see? What'd you learn
10:14about him? Um, I don't, I was a little annoyed at it, not at him, just at the situation where
10:20he
10:20felt he had to try and please people. And, um, I get it in a sense, but at the same
10:27time, I felt like
10:28it made it look worse for him because you could see as soon as he wanted to take the fight
10:32to the
10:32ground, he could. And he did it quite convincingly. As soon as he grabbed him, he was able to just
10:37get
10:37it straight down and, um, almost made that look easy. And like, I feel like that would have built a
10:43better story for himself. Anyway, you go out and dominate another guy. You made that closer.
10:49Luckily people understood that and people get in there like, all right, you need to try to be
10:53exciting. Um, so yeah, all good. Cause for what, like, you know, like he's, you don't need to try
11:00and be exciting, especially for this fight with me. There's like people, people are intrigued.
11:06They're going to be like, Oh, we know what you want to bring. We know you want to wrestle and
11:10grapple.
11:11We know that's going to be tough against Alex. Let's see if you could do it with, uh, with
11:14Alex. You know what I mean? So a lot of people can't wait for this fight because they know
11:19about my anti-wrestling and how I handle that. And you ain't just going to control me for
11:2325 minutes. That ain't going to happen. So whether this, I feel like it's a built-in story
11:28in itself. You don't need to try and hype it up because I'm fighting like a, he's, his style's
11:35fighting the perfect fighter to make this exciting, to put, to put a fight and show people
11:42something they haven't seen with him, with him. So, um, yeah, again, he's undefeated.
11:48He's 20, you know, he knows how to win. He just hasn't faced someone like me.
11:52Sure. Sure. And look, I want to ask one last question here before I let you go there. There's
11:57kind of, uh, uh, I guess, uh, a bit more of, uh, a mix of personalities that we're seeing
12:03in the championship picture in the last few years. Uh, well, especially this year, I would
12:08think Sean Strickland and Josh Hogan, they bring a very different dynamic to the way they
12:13promote a fight than someone like you, who, who has been a champion for years, who's been
12:17an engaging personality. Like you said, you're very honest in that kind of thing. Um, what,
12:21what's your kind of take on both the responsibilities of promoting a fight as especially a champion or
12:27someone in a championship fight, but also the way it's promoted. What do you, what do you
12:31think when you see kind of the way things are in the, in the current climate?
12:35I mean, I get it. I mean, everyone's going to have their own way of, uh, how they promote
12:38a fight and, um, you know, some fights are going to need to be promoted differently. I'm
12:45not a type to trash talk. Um, but again, a lot of the times, if you're exciting, people
12:52are going to want to watch you fight, you know what I mean? And, uh, and, and some
12:57fights are just like stylistically people want to watch, you know, you can get two guys
13:01that, you know, that, you know, going to bring it like, uh, let's say like Joshua
13:06Vian and, uh, and Pantoja. It's like, uh, you know, that that's just going to be a scrap
13:11and absolute war. Who else is, you can bring up fighters and be like, they won't need a
13:15trash talk. Even though they did, they don't need to, we know, we're like, we want to see
13:18how that fight's going to go. Um, you know what I mean? So it just, but I get it. I
13:24do
13:24get, I get, uh, why, why people feel the need to hype up fights and whatnot. Would
13:30does it get some of the casuals more interested? Maybe. Um, but for me, that's
13:34just not how I roll. I just be, be myself and I'm glad I was able. I'm glad I did
13:40that. And I'm glad I was able to be appreciated as I am. Like, uh, you know what I
13:47mean? I'd really do feel the love, um, so much. And it's, uh, I'm glad I was able to
13:52be myself for the whole process.