Alexander Volkanovski sits on top of the UFC pound-for-pound rankings. However, his throne was challenged by the current lightweight champion Islam Makhachev. Both men have been undergoing intense training to rise victorious. Without a doubt, in order to stand against Makhachev, the Australian fighter needs to learn to fend himself off from his opponent’s elite sambo skills. However, Volkanovski’s experience with sambo training did not go as planned.
ADVERTISEMENT
Article continues below this ad
‘The Great’ revealed that he had to discipline a sambo fighter during his practice sessions. In the video shared by XcellentMMA, Volkanovski is seen putting all his energy into the pad practice as he tries to teach the trainer a lesson.
Alexander Volkanovski’s experience with a sambo fighter
Recently, Volkanovski talked about a hilarious incident during his training. He recalled that his team brought in a sambo fighter. However, ‘The Great’ didn’t find respect in the way he talked and decided to teach the sambo fighter a lesson.
Volkanovski said, “We ended up bringing a Sambo guy… He wasn’t the most respectful in the conversations… So when we bring him in, we bring him in [to] sort of teach him a lesson… I’m not usually like that. He thought like that, ‘Oh, you’re going to need this, need that,’ and then I showed him real quickly that we didn’t need nothing… I’m not usually like that in training, but I mean, I had to prove a bit of a point. Yeah, that’s sort of how it was… So, we, we taught, sort of taught him a lesson.”
However, learning sambo is in fact one of the crucial steps for the fighter. Given the attributes of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s prodigy, high-level wrestling training is indeed a dire necessity.
Alexander Volkanovski is set to fight Islam Nurmagomedov
ADVERTISEMENT
Article continues below this ad
Earlier, during the post-fight interview of UFC 281, Makhachev called out Volkanovski for a bout in UFC 284. Without a doubt, the pound-for-pound number one accepted and had a face-off inside the Octagon. However, the two have been glowering at each other on social media, ever since the face-off.
With the rising heat and closing date, the excitement of the fans is definitely on an exponential rise. Neither of the fighters is underestimating the other. Furthermore, both of them have been training hard to rise victorious.
ADVERTISEMENT
Article continues below this ad
Watch This Story: Conor McGregor Responds to Islam Makhachev’s Win & Petr Yan Loss at UFC 280
What are your thoughts on Volkanovski’s side-cracking story? Let us know in the comments down below.