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Alexander Volkov already has a stiff test ahead of him when he faces hot prospect Tom Aspinall in the main event of UFC Fight Night: London on March 19th. But he won't just be facing one man at the O2 Arena. He'll also be dealing with a sold out crowd of 20,000 fans all cheering for Manchester native Aspinall.
Some fighters may get nerves facing an opponent on their home turf, but Volkov actually likes it. During a pre-event media scrum the Russian heavyweight used some pro wrestling lingo to describe his feelings on the subject, and how even the negative attention is a positive thing.
"There is always face and heel in this business and right now I am the heel. But I'm happy with it because if the fight has attention, a story, power behind it, I'm very happy. And it's always great when fans are very interested in the fight. They want to see me losing, they want to see him winning. That's always good for business. I'm happy with it."
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Volkov comes into this event 3-1 over his last four fights with the sole defeat coming to Ciryl Gane, who went on to claim the UFC interim heavyweight title. Most recently Volkov bounced back to winning form by defeating Marcin Tybura via decision at UFC 267 in October of 2021.
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As for his opponent Tom Aspinall, he is on a four fight win streak inside the UFC with all four fights ending via finish and three of those bouts earning him performance of the night bonuses. Even with all those accomplishments Aspinall claims we've only seen ten percent of his abilities.
Watch the full interview with Alexander Volkov below (via MMA Junkie):
Alexander Volkov's struggles with COVID-19 stopped him from entering the UK early
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine resulting in UK sanctions against various the national teams of various countries, there were questions about whether Alexander Volkov would be allowed into the UK to fight. The UFC attempted to arrange for Volkov to arrive in London early so any issues could be worked out in advance, but 'Drago' explained why that wasn't possible.
"The case is a month and a half before the fight I got COVID for the second time. So to prepare myself I needed a full camp and I couldn't spare even a week without the preparation of my full team with sparring and everything. We're very grateful to the UFC that they tried to get me to the fight early but I couldn't. We were quite sure that we'd be able to get here and it turned out to be okay."
