What’s Next For Volkanovski and Usman?

UFC 294 is now in the books, and what could have been a disaster for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) after losing both its main and co-main events in the span of 24 hours was salvaged by the willingness of two men to step in on short notice, Alexander Volkanovski and Kamaru Usman.

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Volkanovski stepped in to face reigning Lightweight champion, Islam Makhachev after Charles Oliveira bowed out a week before flying to Abu Dhabi as a result of a bad cut suffered above his right eye during training.

“The Great” was quick to accept the challenge for a few reasons, the first being that the Aussie had been chomping at the bit to get another crack at Makhachev after the 155-pound kingpin defeated him earlier this year. Plus, as he revealed post-fight, he was eager to get back into the cage because he was getting stir-crazy just sitting around for the phone to ring for a fight offer in order to get back into a training camp.

But as commendable as it was for him to step in to take the fight, things went a bit worse for him in the rematch after suffering a first-round knockout out loss to the dominant Lightweight king (see it here). It’s only the second time “The Great” has been stopped in his MMA career, suffering his first loss in such manner over a decade ago. The good news is that Volkanovski is still the Featherweight champion so finding his next challenge won’t be that hard because Ilia Topuria is waiting in the wings.

And since “The Great” wants to get back on the horse as soon as possible, we could seem him back in action as early as January 2024.

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As for Usman, he did Dana White and Co. a solid by stepping in to face Khamzat Chimaev following Paulo Costa’s withdrawal due to issues with his elbow. The former Welterweight champion put on a solid performance, taking Chimaev the distance before losing a majority decision.

It took a bit for “The Nigerian Nightmare” to get going after getting dominated in the opening frame, but in rounds two and three he started to find his groove and started to let his fists fly. According to Chimaev, he couldn’t return as much fire as he would have liked seeing as he his hand was broken. Nevertheless, Usman gave it all he had against a man not a lot of people want a part of.

The former 170-pound champion has now lost three straight fights, which is hard to imagine since he had gone unbeaten for eight years and 19 fights. But his loss to Chimaev didn’t do much to affect his stock. In fact, it may have helped it because he earned the respect of fans and his colleagues alike for his willingness to answer the call.

As far as what’s next for the former champion, that all depends on if he decides to go back down to Welterweight or stay at Middleweight. According to “The Nigerian Nightmare,” he is leaning toward staying at 185 pounds and called out Dricus Du Plessis for a main card fight at UFC 300. If Chimaev does indeed get Strickland next, then this would be a good fight to make, but I don’t think “DDP” takes it since he was on line for a title shot. That’s why perhaps a showdown against Paulo Costa could be in order.

Thoughts?

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For complete UFC 294 results, coverage and highlights click HERE.