Ilia Topuria put the brakes on Alexander Volkanovski‘s dominant reign as the featherweight champion at UFC 298. The world was shocked when Islam Makhachev head-kicked ‘The Great’ into the shadow realm, but people expected Volk’s featherweight dominance to continue. All those expectations came crashing when ‘El Matador’ delivered a devastating right hand that floored Volkanovski. Perhaps, the comeback to fighting after losing to Islam Makhachev was a tad bit premature. Or maybe Volk just didn’t have the right game plan going into the fight? Reflecting on the loss, coach Joe Lopez opened up about what went wrong.

According to Lopez, he had given a specific warning to his fighter about engaging with the dangerous Georgian-Spanish champion. Here’s what Joe Lopez revealed while talking to Submission Radio, “I said to Alex, once you get inside, stay inside because I could see, if he is going to get caught it was – when he exited you know, when he got into the pocket and he stepped out I didn’t want him to step back out. I wanted him to take a step forward, initiate a clinch and engage the wrestling.”

Furthermore, coach Lopez admitted that Alexander Volkanovski wasn’t in the best form going into his 6th defense against Ilia Topuria. Apparently, ‘The Great’ was battling some issues behind the scenes that might have severely affected his mindset and performance – “Alex went into his last three fights [compromised] – especially with the Yair [Rodriguez] fight, Alex couldn’t use his left arm for probably three-quarters of the camp because he had bits of broken bone in his elbow”.

Despite these conditions, however, the Australian found a third-round finish against Yair Rodriguez in the main event of UFC 290. After the event, he underwent surgery to rectify his injured elbow that occurred during that fight. Currently, who ‘The Great’ will face next is up to anyone’s guess. While Volkanovski was promised a rematch by Topuria, rumor has it that he might face another surging featherweight next.

Alexander Volkanovski might clash with Diego Lopes at UFC 312

Alexander Volkanovski may not get an immediate rematch with Ilia Topuria, considering he wants to fight in February. Furthermore, Topuria just defended his featherweight title against Max Holloway, and it isn’t clear what his next move is. With ‘Blessed’ out of action till July – and perhaps moving up to lightweight – the featherweight top-5 has two surging contenders that ‘The Great’ hasn’t faced yet. One is Movsar Evloev, and the other is the #3-ranked Diego Lopes.

Losing to only Evloev in his UFC debut, the Brazilian fighter out of Mexico has disposed of five opponents in his wake, including Dan Ige and Brian Ortega. With him occupying the #3 spot after beating Ortega, Lopes’ is a stone’s throw away from the champion. Perhaps, the UFC is thinking of matching up Volkanovski and Lopes. However, neither Dana White nor the promotion has spoken about this yet. Still, this doesn’t mean there aren’t any developments happening from Volk’s camp in this regard. According to Brendan Bradford from CODE Sports, Volkanovski’s manager Ash Belcastro has indicated that the potential clash is not out of the conversation, even though there hasn’t been any official announcement.

One thing is for sure – Dana White and the Aussie have a good relationship because of Alexander Volkanovski’s reliability. The former champion saved the UFC 294 Abu Dhabi card when he stepped in to fight Makhachev on short notice. Since he consistently showed up and even saved events from falling out, it is fitting that the UFC matched him up with an opponent of his choice. Who do you think Volk will be matched up with next? Let us know in the comments section below.