UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski has appeared to confirm that rumors that he’ll be rematching Yair Rodriguez next are true.
Volkanovski had been calling for a fight with the undefeated Movsar Evloev, but the UFC instead ruled out that option by pairing Evloev with Aaron Pico instead.
At that stage people began to put the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together and came to the conclusion that the UFC were looking to have Volkanovski fight Rodriguez again instead as a likely headliner for the upcoming Noche UFC event in September to celebrate Mexican Independence Day.
“It’s pretty clear that it wasn’t going to be Movsar,” Volkanovski told Main Event TV. “Cause that’s who I thought would be, being undefeated and the sort of tear that he’s on. But I think they matched him up, you see him tweet something about that. So he’s already went out and made that public that he obviously, unfortunately can’t fight for the title. Yair’s name has popped up. No dates set right now…
“The rumors you’re hearing are pretty much true but nothing’s locked in.”
Volkanovski vs. Rodriguez 2 is convenient from the UFC’s perspective if there plan is indeed to tie it in to their Noche UFC show, but beyond that it’s not a fight that fans were necessarily calling to be run back given that Volkanovski comfortably won their first fight by 3rd round TKO back in 2023.
Of course Volkanovski would then suffered tough back-to-back defeats against Islam Makhachev and Ilia Topuria, before reclaiming the 145lb title with a unanimous decision victory against Diego Lopes a couple of months ago.
As for Rodriguez, he went on to be submitted by Brian Ortega in his next fight, but has got back in the win column by defeating debuting former Bellator champ Patricio ‘Pitbull’ back in April.
