Alexander Volkanovski believes Charles Oliveira would have had a better chance against Ilia Topuria at UFC 317 if he’d adopted a different game-plan on the night.
“I thought Charles probably had more other ways of winning,” the featherweight champ Volkanovski said on the Flagrant podcast. “He probably should have avoided the crash, right? And he just didn’t. He just decided to crash, and that’s why I picked first-round finish.”
While Oliveira only lasted half a round against Topuria, Volkanovski was also KO’d in the 2nd round by Topuria last year, so he knows how difficult it is to fight him.
Nevertheless, he believes there was an opportunity for Oliveira if he’d tried to take the fight into deeper waters on the mat rather than just going head-to-head with the dangerous striker.
“Wrestle the bloke, mate. We want to see the gas tank. See what happens there because I thought Charles when he was taking him down and forcing the wrestling and the grappling, I felt like it was starting to wear on him a little bit. So even when he sort of ended up on top when they grappled, I don’t know if you remember, Ilia gets up, and then he was just staying up and kicking him, didn’t let him up. He waited and waited. ‘I’m going to wait 30 seconds, kick his legs, get my breath back.'”
It’s certainly be interesting to see how Topuria would cope with a more wrestle-heavy approach, though it should be noted that he’s also a good wrestler in his own right and has proven grappling ability.
In fact, Topuria finished his first seven pro-MMA bouts via first round submission prior to joining the UFC, and while he’s since become more known for his formidable knockout ability on the feet, he did also finish Bryce Mitchell with an arm-triangle choke back in 2022.
So at this stage Topuria has shown no clear weaknesses, but there’s no doubt that there’s plenty of challengers who will now be eager to test their skills against him and try to find a way to break his unbeaten record.
