Earlier this week Dana White indicated that he’s all-in on an immediate trilogy title fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway, but as he predicted, the current champion is less than thrilled about it.
“It’s pretty clear that like, you win back-to-back, two wins in a row. To make a third one, it just doesn’t really make sense, especially right now,” Volkanovski told Submission Radio. “Again, we know that last fight was close, but the judges gave me the decision, and that’s that. And in the first fight, even though it was competitive, I pretty clearly won that fight. So, to just give him another rematch straight away and put the division on hold, it just doesn’t make any sense. . .
“It was a close fight, and I understand why people want to see the fight again, but at the same time, I won twice back to back. So, it just doesn’t really make sense right now. It’s something that it can definitely be a big fight in the future as well. But for right now, I’ve got a division that I want to hold and I don’t want to keep on hold. So, I want number one contenders, I want some fresh blood in there. So, we’ll see who that is.”
Volkanovski went on to explain how he’d been a good sport by giving Holloway a rematch in the first place, but now he’s got to the stage where he wants to see what other challenges await him as the division’s champion.
“Look, man, I gave Max a rematch for them. The UFC didn’t give me anything else but the rematch. My team weren’t too happy about that, but again, I ended up saying, you know what, there’s no one else, I still think this is the biggest fight for me on that card as well – cause there was no clear number ones, so I think that was the biggest fight, and that’s why I wanted to do it. So, we ended up making it worth it on a big card like it was and we made it happen. . .
“I probably would maybe consider it if there was no other fight and this was the fight that everyone wanted, but it seems like everyone wants us to move on anyway. The division needs to play out, and we got a whole division, there’s so many of us. We’ve got 15 people that are ranked for a reason, and what, we’re just gonna keep fighting until Max wins? You know what I mean? It just doesn’t make sense.”
