{"id":447386,"date":"2026-02-01T15:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T15:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/447386\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T15:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T15:10:08","slug":"alexander-volkanovski-names-potential-next-ufc-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/447386\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Volkanovski names potential next UFC opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexander Volkanovski<\/a> is an easy champion, in his estimation. That means the UFC matchmaking team shouldn’t have an issue working on his next fight after his big win Saturday.<\/p>\n

In the UFC 325 main event, Volkanovski (28-4 MMA, 15-3 UFC) defeated Diego Lopes<\/a> (27-8 MMA, 6-3 UFC) by unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 50-45) to retain featherweight gold and extend his legacy as one of the all-time greats even further.<\/p>\n

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Matching Volkanovski’s in-cage reputation is how he handles himself outside of the cage. A sportsman through and through, Volkanovski said he feels a responsibility to ensure that he doesn’t hold up the division and that the best fighters are challenging him for the belt. That could be why he name-dropped two individuals in particular as his most likely next test.<\/p>\n

“I mean, if it’s the featherweight division, it’s got to be the top guys,” Volkanovski said on the Paramount+ post-fight show. You know what I’m like. I want to fight the top guys who deserve it. You’ve got Movsar and Lerone Murphy. I’ve been told they’re going to face each other. I don’t know if that’s just rumors. That’ll be great. I’ll be watching that. If the next one is definitely featherweight, it’s got to be one of those two.”<\/p>\n

In a day and age of chasing super fights and side stepping the next-men-up for more buzz-worthy fights, Volkanovski maintains the old school way of conceptualizing what his next tests should be. Why? He explains.<\/p>\n

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“I’m an easy champ to understand,” Volkanovski said at a post-fight news conference. “If you deserve it, you’re next. … I’ve got a responsibility. I talk about having a responsibility as a champion. I don’t think enough champions look at it that way. For me, I look at it as a responsibility.<\/p>\n

“There are rankings for a reason, people that deserve it. If someone does get in, I’ll still be active enough to give the people that deserve it a chance anyway, so they don’t have to wait that long. But if I’m just going to keep letting other people cut the line, then I’m not really doing my part either. I’ll talk to the UFC and see what they say. But for me, again I’m an easy champion at the end of the day. If the UFC pushes it or whatever, all right. We’ll see what happens.”<\/p>\n

Neither Evloev (19-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) nor Murphy (17-0-1 MMA, 9-0-1 UFC) has their next fight set, though they are rumored to face each other next. Both men have been on quite a roll as of late, so the victor will likely be considered the next title challenger.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Alexander Volkanovski names potential next UFC opponents<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Volkanovski is an easy champion, in his estimation. That means the UFC matchmaking team shouldn’t have an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[28981,49,48,641,638,62831,82,640,142930],"class_list":["post-447386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-alexander-volkanovski","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-responsibility","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-volkanovski"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}