UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski isn’t sure how truthful Max Holloway is being in the build-up to their title rematch.
Volkanovski takes on Holloway in the co-main event of Saturday’s UFC 251 in Yas Island, Abu Dhabi. The event is the first card of the UFC’s “Fight Island” series, which was designed to give international fighters a place to compete while facing COVID-19 travel bans to the U.S.
During the pandemic, fighters have been forced to alter their training methods to not only be coronavirus free and be eligible to fight, but also to comply with government stay-at-home orders in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Holloway made recent headlines when stating in numerous interviews that his training camp was done at home through video conferencing his coach on Zoom.
Although many people working from home have been forced to resort to softwares such as Zoom, Volkanovski (21-1 MMA, 8-0 UFC) doesn’t think a fighter can fully prepare for a world-class fight through virtual means. He thinks Holloway is either lying or just entering UFC 251 ill-prepared.
“You need that contact training. You need it,” Volkanovski told MMA Junkie on Tuesday during UFC 251 virtual media day. “Even me, I had six weeks of contact training, and I didn’t have contact training before that.
“My team went out of their way to get an exemption to make that happen, went through the government, and they got an exemption so we could do contact training because it’s important. Don’t get me wrong. I was keeping fit, and I was staying strong, but to say that I’m fight fit and ready to fight for a title, it’s just ridiculous.
“I’m sure he wouldn’t put himself in that position. He wants to take that belt. I’m sure he wants his belt back and having a camp without training partners, it just doesn’t make sense. And if that’s the case, maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he’s just fighting for the money. I don’t know what it is. Maybe he doesn’t care about this division anymore, I don’t know. If that’s the case, I really don’t think he’s committed to this fight like he should be.”
Volkanovski hopes Holloway is playing games, and he actually had a proper training camp for their rematch. Regardless, Volkanovski feels confident he’ll beat whatever version of Holloway shows up.
“People are saying he had later rounds better, but I still won those rounds, so it just shows you when he made adjustments I was still better,” Volkanovski said. “I had a broken hand, and I was still better. So I’m not throwing shade, but I just have his number. I am the best featherweight in the world. I proved that in December, and I’ll prove it again this weekend. ”
Alexander Volkanovski on Max Holloway: 'I just have his number' whether he trained on Zoom or not
