"I was just preparing for Ilia" - Alexander Volkanovski opens up about Ilia Topuria's surpising decision to vacate UFC featherweight title

Alexander Volkanovski will now be fighting for the UFC featherweight title against an unexpected adversary in his next outing after Ilia Topuria vacated the 145-pound strap in a surprising turn of events.

Volkanovski seemed on track for a rematch with the man who claimed the belt from him but alas, Ilia Topuria is no longer the UFC's featherweight titleholder.

As the division moves forward, former UFC featherweight champ Volkanovski has a chance to reclaim his belt when he headlines UFC 314 against Diego Lopes. UFC CEO Dana White announced all of these big developments, with White also teasing that a fight for Topuria will be announced soon as well.

Taking to his personal YouTube channel to address all of these seismic shifts, Alexander Volkanovski said:

"We originally thought it was going to be Ilia or Lopes. I was just preparing for Ilia because that's sort of what I got. Obviously we did the faceoff.

"Then I was getting told we're not exactly sure. He was talking about moving up. So that's when we were like alright, something may be changing. But I've been preparing for April, Miami for a while now. I've had a pretty long camp already."

Check out Volkanovski addressing the big UFC 314 news at the 0:43 mark below:

---

Alexander Volkanovski's UFC championship legacy

Alexander Volkanovski has not entered the cage in the year since he was finished by Ilia Topuria to lose his hold on the gold. That being said, 'The Great' has an incredible legacy as a UFC titleholder.

Volkanovski notched five defenses of his featherweight title and is regarded as an all time great within the UFC's featherweight championship lineage.

The 36-year-old began his reign by claiming the belt from fellow featherweight legend Max Holloway and secured his first defense over Holloway in their subsequent rematch.

Volkanovski followed that up with statement wins over Brian Ortega and Chan Sung Jung, as well as Max Holloway in what was his most dominant win over the Hawaiian combatant throughout their series of fights.

The Australian then suffered a pair of setbacks to UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev, which sandwiched the final featherweight title defense of his reign.

Alexander Volkanovski notched that victory over Yair Rodriguez at UFC 290 with a third round TKO in July 2023. Volkanovski versus Lopes was far from the only bout that White announced during this video address from yesterday.