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Alexander Volkanovski is potentially the greatest featherweight fighter in the world. After a successful trilogy of bouts with Max Holloway, he has finally been recognized as the sport's pound-for-pound best.
'The Great' edges closer and closer to clearing out the featherweight division, and as the challengers become scarce, Alexander Volkanovski must look elsewhere.
In the aftermath of UFC 276, the reigning UFC featherweight champion made his intentions clear, stating that he will move up a weight class to challenge for the UFC lightweight championship. While the 155 pound title remains vacant due to a weigh-in mishap involving Charles Oliveira at UFC 274, the Brazilian, who recently defeated Justin Gaethje, is still viewed as the division's champion.
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While Oliveira is now scheduled for a UFC 280 matchup with top contender Islam Makhachev, Alexander Volkanovski plans to capture UFC gold in the division above him. This list details five reasons why he would beat the unofficial lightweight champion, Charles Oliveira.
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#5. Alexander Volkanovski's feints
Alexander Volkanovski is an active fighter whose feints render it safer for him to apply pressure. Against an opponent like Charles Oliveira, the Australian's feints would prove crucial.
'Do Bronx' is a relentless pressure fighter who fully commits himself to offense while de-emphasizing his defensive striking. When the Brazilian advances towards his opponents, he does so behind front kicks that target the midsection. This causes his foes to straighten their posture, exposing them to Oliveira's double collar-tie and follow-up knees to the head and body.
When he's closing the distance, Oliveira relies on his toughness and durability to withstand his opponent's strikes. While this proved successful against Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje, neither fighter is as active of a feinter as Alexander Volkanovski. Due to his constant prodding, Volkanovski is able to conceal his power-punches.
Punches that fighters fail to see coming are often the ones that result in knockouts. Not only will Volkanovski find better openings for his striking due to his feints, but the sheer variety of his feints and offensive options will overwhelm Oliveira's unconscious decision-making process.
As an unyieldingly aggressive fighter, the unofficial lightweight champion is often the one dictating his opponent's reactions. Furthermore, the lack of active feints he's encountered enabled him to march forward knowing that the limited striking arsenals of foes like Justin Gaethje, Dustin Poirier, and Michael Chandler do not feature varied feints.
Even Tony Ferguson, who is himself adept at utilizing feints, did not use them against Oliveira. Alexander Volkanovski, however, will force the former lightweight champion to react, lest Oliveira allow himself to be picked apart on his way inside.
#4. Alexander Volkanovski's stand-up style matches well with Oliveira's
Styles make fights. It's a universal truth in combat sports. While it does not necessarily denote one fighter as better than the other, it does reveal that certain stylistic clashes can be predicted. Charles Oliveira is one of the fighters in the UFC who gets caught with strikes a lot. This is largely due to his relentless pressure and irresponsible defensive striking. The Brazilian stands tall but does not move his head off the center-line.
While he uses kicks and jabs as his primary distance management tool, he is also dangerous at shorter distances, often using his lead uppercut to punish foes for their level changes. However, as a tall fighter who fights from an upright stance, does not move his head and relies on both the jab and lead uppercut, he is especially vulnerable to a fighter like Alexander Volkanovski, who is a specialist at neutralizing taller, longer foes attempting to jab him from a distance.
He either counters them with a calf kick when they step forward to jab and expose their lead leg as they extend their stance, or he jabs with them, interrupting their jab with his own so that his foes do not build their jabs into combinations. However, the Australian also makes intelligent use of the overhand right, a strike that is well-suited for taller foes who fight from upright stances like Oliveira.
Taller fighters face difficulties when reading punches that start low and then go high before striking them from a downward arc as they are usually the ones punching downward. Not only does Alexander Volkanovski possess a sharp overhand right, he often loops it over his opponent's jab as a counter, further nullifying Oliveira's jab.
The Brazilian's other punch—the lead uppercut—brings him into range, nullifying his own reach advantage and exposing him to Alexander Volkanovski's thunderous left hook.
#3. Alexander Volkanovski's submission defense
No one would mistake Charles Oliveira for anything less than one of the greatest offensive Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialists in MMA today. The unofficial lightweight champion is the all-time record holder for the most submission wins in UFC history. Curiously, Oliveira achieved this feat without possessing a strong takedown game. Instead, the Brazilian is an opportunistic grappler.
Against his most recent opponent Justin Gaethje, Oliveira got the fight to the ground through a knockdown. Against another foe, Dustin Poirier, he managed a slick back-take after backing the American up against the fence and mounting him for a standing rear-naked choke. While both victories were impressive, neither Poirier nor Gaethje possess commendable defensive grappling.
Justin Gaethje's Brazilian-jiu jitsu is virtually nonexistent, while Poirier—despite his black belt—has an instinct for exposing his back whenever he's near the fence.
Alexander Volkanovski, by contrast, does not commit the same mistakes. Furthermore, the Australian does not immediately panic and surrender with a tap. He maintains his composure and takes every necessary step to prevent a locked submission from advancing into a finish. This was most evident against Brian Ortega, from whom Volkanovski escaped three different submissions--a guillotine choke, a triangle choke and an anaconda choke.
'The Great' interrupted the flow of every submission by using one hand to push against Ortega's hips to disrupt his posture and free up space while using his alternate hand to push against Ortega's forearm until his foe exhausted his arms. His defensive grappling, mental composure, thick neck and all-around toughness render Alexander Volkanovski incredibly difficult to submit, with even a grappler as skillful as Ortega struggling to finish him with three different submissions.
Not only will Oliveira struggle to secure takedowns against 'The Great', but he will encounter a much stiffer challenge on the ground than he might expect, where blowing out his arms attempting chokes will not work in his favor given Volkanovski's cardio.
#2. Alexander Volkanovski's cardio
No fighter in the lightweight division pushes an offensive pace quite like Charles Oliveira. His opponents wilt under relentless pressure, and his bodywork in the clinch pays dividends as the fight goes on. Dustin Poirier—a fighter known for possessing above-average cardio—was visibly tired by the third round of his bout with Oliveira. Furthermore, the Brazilian went three rounds against Tony Ferguson, perhaps the lightweight division's most fearsome cardio machine.
However, there are asterisks next to those wins in terms of Oliveira's opponents surrendering to his unrelenting pace. Ferguson fought Oliveira with an uncharacteristically timid approach, refusing to push the pace he normally does due, in part, to the brutal beating he suffered against Justin Gaethje which left him gun-shy.
Poirier, by contrast, had his stamina depleted due to the Brazilian targeting his midsection with knees in the clinch, an approach that will backfire against Volkanovski, whose clinch work is superior and is detailed in this article's final entry.
Compared to Oliveira's past foes, Alexander Volkanovski is a different beast altogether, having gone five rounds against Max Holloway on three different occassions without gassing out as Poirier had against the Hawaiian. 'The Great' never slows down, even improving as the fight progresses, doing so against Max Holloway, of all people.
He is notoriously difficult to finish, having never been submitted, while suffering one knockout loss in his career to a welterweight despite currently reigning as the UFC featherweight champion. The speed advantage he'll possess in the lightweight division will not only render him even more difficult for Oliveira to hit, but will aid him in scrambles should he need to avoid grappling situations.
A fight that does not end with a finish only favors the Australian given his unyielding gas tank.
#1. Volkanovski's clinch game
Charles Oliveira's clinch-work is one of his primary weapons. He often secures a collar-tie right after throwing a punch while his opponents are preoccupied with defending his strikes as he closes the distance against them. However, most of the Brazilian's clinch-work is designed for offensive purposes. While he does use underhooks and overhooks to defend against takedowns, he doesn't possess a deep pool of defensive tools to use against well-equipped clinch specialists.
Oliveira is concerned only with landing knees and elbows. He folds his longer arms to land elbows with more leverage than a fighter with a shorter reach would, while his knees benefit from his height and upright stance.
Unfortunately, this approach leaves him susceptible to Volkanovski's own clinch-work. The Australian comes from a Greco-Roman wrestling background. Thus, 'The Great' has spent years grappling and wrestling solely in the clinch, which has paid dividends.
Inside the octagon, Alexander Volkanovski looks to smother longer foes in the clinch, depriving them of the space they need to throw strikes with their longer arms while creating openings for his dirty boxing. While Oliveira correctly uses his long arms in the clinch, folding them into hard elbows, Volkanovski also uses his head.
'The Great' shoves the top of his head against his opponent's chin, pinning them against the fence, imobilizing them and breaking their posture to mitigate the threat of elbows. Lastly, Oliveira's tendency to drop his hands right after exiting the clinch exposes him to the hooks Volkanovski enjoys throwing right after clinch-breaks.
