Former featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski’s reign atop the 145-pound division came to a sudden a violent end on Saturday in the UFC 298 main event.
Volkanovski faced the undefeated Ilia Topuria and was knocked out in the second round. Volkanovski had held the title since Dec. 2019. After the defeat, “The Great” issued a video statement vowing to regain his belt.
“What’s going on guys?” I thought I’d do a video to just let you know I’m all good and obviously to talk about what happened,” Volkanovski said in a video posted to his YouTube channel.
We play a game that is crazy. You can’t have it all. You can be the hammer or the nail. Last night, I was a nail. I’ve played the hammer a lot of times. Volkanovski said, “I have ruined many parties.” “Ilia did the job. I felt great. I thought I did great. The judges probably had me in the lead after the first round, and I thought I was picking it up more in the second. I was prepared to go another level. I started off by making him miss, then began to touch him.
“He got me into the cage, where we both knew we didn’t like to be…
