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Max Holloway's trash-talk aimed at Alexander Volkanovski heading into their recently concluded trilogy fight at UFC 276 clearly backfired for the Hawaiian. All it did was further motivate 'The Great' to deliver a statement-making performance inside the octagon come fight night.
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Alexander Volkanovski settled his rivalry with Holloway with a dominant and lopsided unanimous decision win at UFC 276, winning every single fight in the trilogy. Heading into their third fight, Holloway resorted to trash-talking in a bid to try and get inside the reigning featherweight champ's head.
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Although Volkanovski admits he was initially taken aback by Holloway being hostile towards him during the pre-fight press conference, he claimed it lit a fire in his belly to go out there and prove his mettle inside the cage. Volkanovski said he soaked up all the trash-talk and jeers from the crowd, and used it as fuel to give him extra motivation heading into the fight.
During an interaction with Sportskeeda MMA's James Lynch, Alexander Volkanovski said:
"It gave me the fire I needed. I was going to go into that press conference, I thought it was going to be chill, I didn't expect much. It ended up being chaos from all angles which was fun, but I wanted to go there, I was going to soak up the energy even if it was the boos or whatever, I was going to use that to get that fire in the belly. He started trash talking and I was like, 'Thank you, I needed that.'"
Watch the interview below:
Alexander Volkanovski regards Charles Oliveira as reigning lightweight champ and wants to fight him for title
Alexander Volkanovski has revealed his intention to move up to the lightweight division in a quest to become a two-division UFC champion. The lightweight title is currently vacant with Charles Oliveira guaranteed the next title shot.
Oliveira is currently looking to fight Conor McGregor for the title but Islam Makhachev is also under consideration as his next opponent. Volkanovski would like to fight Oliveira for the title next and considers the Brazilian to be the reigning champ despite 'Do Bronx' being stripped of the title.
Having said that, if the UFC books a matchup for 'Do Bronx' while the Australian is recovering from injuries suffered in the fight with Holloway, he will take on whoever's the champion by the time he is ready to fight. Volkanovski said:
"Charles is the bigger fight because let's be honest, he's really the champion, he's uncrowned yet, you know, I mean like he's a champ. Everyone looks at him as a champ so that's the bigger fight but if Islam wants to fight him while I'm healing or something, they have that fight and Islam takes it then it's Islam. Whoever's gonna hold that belt."
