Alexander Volkanovski has been showered with praise following his latest title defense.
It would be ‘And Still!’ for the UFC Featherweight Champion at UFC 290, who dispatched of interim champ Yair Rodriguez in three rounds. The performance was dominant from start to finish and at this point, the world is wondering if anyone can go on to dethrone Volkanovski.
‘The Most Unbeatable Guy In The Entire World’
According to UFC Lightweight contender Michael Chandler, the answer to that question is ‘no one’.
“Is Alexander Volkanovski unbeatable? Alexander ‘The Great’ is just that,” Chandler said on his YouTube channel. “I break it down to three C’s of why I think Alexander Volkanovski is the most unbeatable, not just unbeatable champion, but the most unbeatable guy in the entire world. There’s a reason why he’s the pound for pound number one. I break it down to three Cs, completeness, cardio, and composure.”
Chandler’s argument for Volkanovski being ‘unbeatable’ could be challenged by the fact Islam Makhachev holds a win over him at UFC 284. However, not everybody seems to agree with the split decision verdict, scoring the fight instead for the Aussie.
Chandler Continues To Rave About Volkanovski
Win or lose, Volkanovski displayed his world-class skillset against Makhachev and showed he hasn’t lost a step in his following fight with Rodriguez. Chandler explains what makes ‘The Great’ so good at what he does.
“He is the most complete fighter that we have on the roster in the UFC, the most complete fighter in the entire world. The ability to be at home and be two to three to four steps ahead of his opponents in every single position in a fight. On the feet, navigating and negotiating the distance, navigating and negotiating the striking, his plethora of strikes that he has. Very basic, he doesn’t try to get crazy out of his comfort zone, even with how dominant he has been over the last, however many title defenses he has had. Now, he doesn’t try to get out of what makes him him.
“Hard punches, basic punches, basic striking, both with his hands and with his feet. Even throws in elbows and knees when he so chooses, up against the cage, the grappling exchanges up against the cage offense and defense.”
“There’s not a featherweight alive that he can’t take down,” Chandler continued. “And as we saw, there might not be a lightweight in the world that he can’t take down since he took down Islam Makhachev in their fight, which was a very closely contested fight. I know he wants that fight and in my honest opinion, he might be the guy who might get that title shot. Obviously after this fight he talked about needing surgery. So, we’ll see what happens there.
“But he’s just so complete and he’s so clean in every single exchange. There’s never a moment when you’re watching Alexander Volkanovski, where you think he probably should have made a different decision there.”
Volkanovski’s Unmatched Championship Mentality
Chandler, the two-time Bellator champ, has long been touted for his own unique championship mentality. But, forget about his own, ‘Iron’ Mike says Volkanovski has the best championship mentality he’s ever seen.
“He’s a complete fighter. He’s got phenomenal cardio. And the third thing I would say is the man has composure for days. You wanna talk about championship mentality? Alexander Volkanovski, I believe, has the best example of a championship mentality that I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Chandler said.
“His composure in there, as I’ve already said, he never looks like he’s not in control. Yeah, he’s been hit before. Yeah, he almost got, or it looked like he almost got submitted by Brian Ortega. Yeah, he got hit by a couple crazy attacks by Yair Rodriguez. Yeah, we’ve seen him a couple times in fight. He hasn’t won every single second of every single fight, of course, but I believe I was actually this past weekend at UFC 290 was sitting in the back. Daniel Cormier was there [and] Laura Sanko, Brendan Fitzgerald. We were kind of having a conversation. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe Alexander Volkanovski has only lost four rounds in his entire career. I can’t confirm that cause I didn’t look it up before this video. But it seems like that the man is always in control.
“He’s so complete. He’s got phenomenal cardio for his size, his power, his speed, his quickness, his athleticism, and his composure. There’s never a moment that he doesn’t look like he’s in a hundred percent complete control. As a guy who I admittedly have been in fights before where I look like I got a deer in the headlights, it’s not easy to be under those bright lights with millions of people watching around the world with the pressure of defending a title. He’s never once, in my opinion, looked like he went out there to try just to not lose instead of trying to win. This right here is the goal. You wanna get your hand raised, especially in a title fight. But he never goes out there just to get his hand raised. He never takes his foot off the gas. He’s always trying to finish the fight.”
The Most Complete & The Most Unbeatable
It might not be an Emmy or an Oscar, but Alexander Volkanovski received a ton of props from Michael Chandler.
“The most complete fighter on the entire planet, the most unbeatable fighter in the entire planet, nobody’s unbeatable, let’s be honest, but if you had to pick right now, to me it’s Alexander ‘The Great’ Volkanovski who is the most unbeatable fighter on the planet right now.”
