ABU DHABI — Alexander Volkanovski will defend his featherweight title against Movsar Evloev at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, where victory would deliver a record ninth win in UFC featherweight title fights and move him clear of Brazilian icon Jose Aldo. The 38-year-old Australian, who has won 28 of his 32 professional fights, arrives in his second championship run seeking to strengthen his claim as the greatest featherweight of all time.
Volkanovski, who beat Aldo in 2019 and holds three victories over Max Holloway, refuses to be drawn on the debate that also includes Holloway among the division's best. "I think a lot of fighters don't like answering these questions, I'll leave everyone else to make these decisions," Volkanovski said. "I'm not fussed about belts, title defences, numbers and all that. When I say I don't care - it is cool, but that's not what drives me. I'm not driven by getting the most title wins. I get more drive for the challenges and getting through those challenges."
The champion's path back to the top has been defined by resilience. After being knocked out by Ilia Topuria in 2024 to lose his title — his third defeat in four fights and second straight knockout after losing to Islam Makhachev only four months earlier in a bid for the lightweight belt — many questioned whether his career was ending. Volkanovski, who prefers to return quickly after defeat, instead took 14 months off before returning last year against Diego Lopes, one of the UFC's brightest prospects, and produced a masterclass to regain the belt before repeating the performance in February to cement his status as the promotion's featherweight king. "The things I'm doing at this age and how I'm doing it, is the real depth," Volkanovski said. "When people throw out 'he's old' - I'm loving that. I want people thinking I'm too old and declining because when I overcome and get through, it's like 'how's he still doing it?' I'll play into that 100%."
Volkanovski is not a knockout artist or submission specialist, but one of the most well-rounded mixed martial artists in history, with world-class footwork, distance management, boxing and cardio that helped him dominate Holloway and Lopes, plus gritty takedown and submission defence that served him gamely against Makhachev and in his 2021 comeback against Brian Ortega. At 18 minutes and three seconds he holds the longest average fight time in UFC featherweight history, while his 11-fight UFC winning streak between 2016 and 2023 is second only to Holloway's record 13, and his 1,623 significant strikes are bettered by the American's remarkable 2,971. In Evloev, the 32-year-old Russian who is undefeated in 20 bouts and on a 10-fight winning streak in the UFC, he faces another stern examination of those credentials.
Win or lose, Volkanovski says he is not considering retirement, though a champion-versus-champion super fight against lightweight champion Justin Gaethje could tempt him to step away. He has twice failed to become a two-division champion, both defeats coming against Makhachev, with the first loss in 2023 razor thin and many believing he should have been awarded the decision after pushing the Russian harder over five rounds than any other opponent. "If I can fit in the equation of the lightweight division - we know Justin is unsure of what he wants to do next," Volkanovski said. "I don't have any plans of retiring other than if we were to do something like this then maybe it's a super-fight, champion versus champion and we see ourselves off. It's something I would retire for, otherwise I'm taking each fight as it goes." The bout follows Volkanovski's title defence against unbeaten Evloev being set for Abu Dhabi this weekend.