{"id":76801,"date":"2025-08-18T06:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/76801\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T06:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:40:07","slug":"see-you-soon-volkanovski-reacts-to-murphys-stunning-knockout-at-ufc-319","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/76801\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;See you soon&#8217;: Volkanovski reacts to Murphy&#8217;s stunning knockout at UFC 319"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lerone Murphy may have just punched his ticket to a featherweight title shot.<\/p>\n<p>The undefeated Brit announced himself on the biggest stage of his career at UFC 319, knocking out Aaron Pico with a devastating spinning-elbow at 3:21 of the first round.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/uk\/mma\/news\/ufc-319-results-highlights-dricus-du-plessis-vs-khamzat-chimaev\/3fe0372298ae1f823f8bb218\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dominant Chimaev wins gold in flawless performance against du Plessis<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Chicago crowd erupted as Murphy extended his UFC record to nine wins, earning a $50k performance bonus and the attention of the division&#8217;s king, Alex Volkanovski.<\/p>\n<p>Volkanovski took to social media immediately after the fight, where he laid out his plans to fight Murphy by the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">See you in December <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LeroneMurphy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">@LeroneMurphy<\/a> congrats <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ufc319?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">#ufc319<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Alex Volkanovski (@alexvolkanovski) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alexvolkanovski\/status\/1956927492092051515?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">August 17, 2025<\/a>Volkanovski calls out Murphy for December showdown<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on his <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NtmivYIpPZA\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">YouTube channel<\/a> after the fight, Volkanovski admitted that Murphy may have just cemented himself as the next man up.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Who knows who I\u2019ve got next, it could be Lerone Murphy,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You get a guy, goes in and does an absolute massive knockout like that, on a big card, on a seven fight win-streak or maybe more\u2026 it\u2019s a bit of a no-brainer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Murphy had to withstand early pressure from Pico, who landed heavy shots in his long-awaited UFC debut. But once Murphy found his timing, the finish came in spectacular fashion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Murphy had to weather a bit of a storm,&#8221; said\u00a0Volkanovski.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You couldn\u2019t script it any better.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For me, I\u2019m waiting to see who it is, who do I think deserves it? I think Lerone Murphy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Volkanovski, who reclaimed his featherweight title at UFC 314 in April against Diego Lopes, has made it clear that he&#8217;s already thinking about his next defence. December, he says, could be the right time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;December\u2019s looking good\u2026 let\u2019s see if we can make that happen,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Lerone Murphy\u2026 you\u2019ve made it pretty clear. Well done, see you soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With Movsar Evloev sidelined and Aaron Pico&#8217;s hype stalled, Murphy&#8217;s spectacular finish may have been exactly what he needed to leapfrog the field.<\/p>\n<p>                        <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lerone Murphy may have just punched his ticket to a featherweight title shot. The undefeated Brit announced himself&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-76801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}