Alexander Volkanovski reclaimed the featherweight title with a unanimous decision victory over Diego Lopes this past weekend in Miami, but he may have broken his hand in the process according to his coach.
“He might have broke his hand,” Volkanovski’s coach Joe Lopez told Submission Radio. “We’ve still got to get that X-rayed. So he did hurt his hand.
“It was early in the fight, I think. You know it. You know, Alex didn’t say anything towards. It was just at the end. He was just saying, ‘look, I think I busted my hand.’ I can’t remember which round. But yeah, he’s got a bit of a sore foot and, yeah, just the bumps and bruises after having a war, you know, a five round war with the warrior, you know?”
If he has broken his hand then that would likely shut down Volkanovski’s hopes of a quick return to the Octagon, having suggested after his latest win that he would potentially have liked to fight Movsar Evloev in the coming months and then perhaps Yair Rodriguez at Noche FC in September.
For now though it seems that the star is looking to the positives, admitting that going through some tough moments in the fight with Lopes was a confidence-builder.
“I think I was happy that I was still able to get hit,” Volkanovski said on his YouTube channel. “If I went out there and didn’t get hit and sort of get my chin tested – You just get a lot more out of it. That’s a lot of questions going in for everybody and myself.
“Is he going to go lights out again as soon as you get touched? That wasn’t the case, so it was good. It was good to have a bit of a war, go through a bit of adversity in there, and bounce back,” he continued. “You know I don’t shy away from adversity. That fight had a little bit of it in there.”
