‘Volkanovski Is The Most Feared Fighter In UFC history’

Alexander Volkanovski has proven to be an all-time great.

The reigning Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Featherweight champion has been nearly perfect in his mixed martial arts (MMA) career (26-2). In his 145-pound division, he literally has been, winning all 16 bouts he’s fought in. Amongst those 16, five have been UFC title defenses.

“The Great” Volkanovski, 34, is starting to lap the competition after most recently disposing of former interim champion, Yair Rodriguez, via a third round technical knockout (watch highlights) at UFC 290 last month (July 8, 2023). With viable contenders looking limited, aside from the No. 5-ranked Ilia Topuria, three-time UFC title challenger, Chael Sonnen, believes Volkanovski has reached a new legendary status.

“Alex Volkanovski is the most feared fighter in UFC history,” Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. “That’s not just an opinion, I’m looking at it — nobody calls him out. You can back over time and find where Max Holloway was coming right at him, but he should. Max Holloway before this Volkanovski incident was the best Featherweight ever. Max was so good they were gonna move him up and have him take on Khabib [Nurmagomedov]. Max was so good they were gonna have him move up and take on [Dustin] Poirier for the belt. Oh, by the way, they did. Max is so good that Freddie Roach was asked to list the top 3 boxers in all of MMA and on that very short list, he included Max Holloway. By the way, Max is that good. He’s that good right now.

“Once we move on past that, would you care to tell me somebody that’s called out Volk?” he continued. “That’s really an amazing thing. It is to the point that Volkanovski is calling out guys for not calling him out. We’ve never been in this before. This has never happened. As great as Jon Jones’ career was, I can think of people all along that were calling him out. You’re looking at one.”

Volkanovski’s lone defeat in UFC came when he attempted to become a dual-division titleholder earlier this year (Feb. 2023). Challenging Lightweight champion, Islam Makhachev, Volkanovski came up short via an ultra-competitive unanimous decision in his home of Australia (watch highlights). Volkanovski hopes to rematch Makhachev at some point, but for now, intends on being as active of a fighting champion as possible.