At this stage of his career Alexander Volkanovski has beaten a who’s who of the UFC’s featherweight division during his title reign, but he admits he regrets not having had the chance to fight former titleholder Conor McGregor during the prime of his career.
“It’s pretty easy for me in saying Conor McGregor because he was in featherweight,” Volkanovski said on The MMA Fan Podcast. “He was a featherweight. We’ve got to remember the champions I’ve beat. I’ve beat every other champion in the featherweight division.
“The only champ I haven’t fought in the featherweight division is Conor McGregor. Conor McGregor in his prime in featherweight division would obviously be the all-time – I’m sure everyone would want to see that right now.
“If we could make that happen right now, somehow get prime Conor vs. prime Volk, it would be pretty special.
“Everyone’s going to talk about the money, and that’s why you only want that fight,” Volkanovski continued. “Yeah, of course there’s money in it, the circus around it, the hype, all of that. But you talk about legacy, you know then I would have beaten every featherweight champion, and I plan on having the most defenses as well.”
During his featherweight run in the UFC, Volkanovski has delivered a perfect 12-0 record, including four successful title defences and beating the likes of Max Holloway (x3), Brian Ortega, Jose Aldo, Chad Mendes and ‘The Korean Zombie’.
McGregor still wields bigger star power of course, though his record at 145lbs doesn’t quite match up to Volkanovski’s as though he went 7-0 at 145lbs and beat Jose Aldo, Max Holloway, Chad Mendes and Dustin Poirier along the way, he never chose to defend the belt.
However, one thing McGregor does have that Volkanovski doesn’t is that he successfully moved up to lightweight and won the title with a win over Eddie Alvarez, though admittedly Volkanovski appeared to have a much tougher fight when he stepped up to face current 155lb champ Islam Makhachev earlier this year, and though he lost he did well enough that there is still talk of a potential rematch in the future.
