White Confirms: Volk To The Rescue!

UFC 294 has a new main event, and it will feature a rematch between featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and lightweight champion Islam Makhachev.

It’s official: Alexander Volkanovski will step into Charles Oliveira’s spot on two week’s notice to take on Islam Makhachev for the lightweight title at UFC 294.

Rumors were swirling on Tuesday night (October 10th, 2023) that Oliveira had been injured and “The Great” had been offered his spot. Now everything is confirmed. Oliveira suffered a bad cut above his eye during a sparring session that has taken him off the October 21 card in Abu Dhabi. Volkanovski will get a much sought after rematch against Makhachev after an extremely competitive war at UFC 284 in February.

All this was confirmed by UFC CEO Dana White following Tuesday night’s Contender Series finale, and announced on UFC.com.

“Yes, all of that is true,” White said before outlining what happened to Oliveira. “He, uh, round five of sparring last night before he was supposed to jump on a plane today, splits his eyebrow wide open and had it stitched up last night. Obviously can’t fly out there with that. It would be one thing too if we — they didn’t call us. We’d have had him go to a plastic surgeon that would have sewed it from the inside out and get that thing done the right way.”

“These guys never call us like they should when something happens. They call us after they get stitched up. But on the flipside too, I can see not wanting to risk it, getting a shot like this and then, y’know.”

Having his eye explode on the first punch? Yeah, I thought we learned our lesson about having fighters show up injured for title fights after the Dillashaw incident in Abu Dhabi last year. But here’s White suggesting he’d have sent “Do Bronx” in two weeks after suffering a massive cut above his eye, if he’d been able to get away with it.

So … some negative vibes being sent Oliveira’s direction. And fair enough, there’s some things to be said about sparring too hard so close to a major fight, and those things aren’t all positive and nice. As for Volkanovski?

“The Volkanovski crew, him and Israel [Adesanya], just absolute studs, man,” White said. “He jumps in and he accepts the fight. One phone call.”

White rolled through the major switch up for UFC 294 without seeming too angry … right up until he discussed how fight cancellation talk hit the internet before he was able to talk to his partners in Abu Dhabi about the change.

“I would have announced it hours ago, except I was waiting for the guys in Abu Dhabi to wake up to let them know before we reported it,” he said tersely. “But these guys that surround these guys down in Brazil can’t keep their f—ing mouths shut. This came out, Oliveira’s canceled, apparently, and it’s just f—ing part of the business.

“I would have liked to talk to the powers that be in Abu Dhabi before it got announced, but people can’t keep their f—ing mouths shut for whatever reason. They wanna act like they’re in the know and make these phone calls. So. Yeah.”

We’ll keep you informed of all the fast-moving changes to UFC 294. For now let us know what you think of Alexander “The Great” stepping in on such short notice to fight Islam Makhachev.

Is this an even better main event than before? Or is Volkanovski potentially squandering his last chance to become double champ by filling in last minute without proper preparation? Tell us what you think in the comments, Maniacs!