Alexander Volkanovski admits he fought Ilia Topuria too soon after loss: 'I was lights out for a couple of minutes'

03/09/2025 17:00

Alexander Volkanovski has only been knocked out three times in his career, and he knows his most recent KO losses are inextricably tied together.

Coming out of UFC 290 in July 2023, Volkanovski was still near the top of the pound-for-pound ladder, having dominated Yair Rodriguez to author the fifth defense of his featherweight title. Four months later, on less than a week's notice, Volkanovski got the call to rematch Islam Makhachev for the lightweight title at UFC 294 with Charles Oliveira losing that opportunity due to a freak cut.

Volkanovski was eager to face Makhachev again after going five thrilling rounds with his Russian rival in a losing effort at UFC 284, but the decision proved costly as Makhachev won their second fight with a first-round head kick knockout. Once again, Volkanovski only waited four months to step back into the octagon and once again he was brutally KO'd as he dropped his 145-pound belt to the undefeated Ilia Topuria at UFC 298.

Looking back, Volkanovski can admit he didn't give himself enough time to recover from the second Makhachev loss.

"I go in too early and I get knocked out, I lose my belt," Volkanovski said on The Unscripted Show, pointing out the difference between injuries in combat sports and in team sports. "That's the fact and that's what happened. I'm not taking anything away from Ilia. I'm just saying that that's what can happen. So I got a crazy shin to the noggin and obviously Ilia can hit hard, we've seen that, but I mean, I've never been just completely lights out like that. I was lights out for a couple of minutes.

"He got me in the cheek. But as soon there was one good connection: snoring."

Volkanovski had never lost a fight at featherweight, much less been knocked out at that weight class, so the sight of him being knocked out cold by Topuria was shocking. The result had a significant impact on Volkanovski's career as he made the decision to take a proper break from training and didn't fight again for over a year before returning at UFC 314 to fight Diego Lopes for a vacant title this past April.

It proved to be a wise move as Volkanovski looked sharp over five rounds, which was in stark contrast to how he felt going toe-to-toe with Topuria.

"So am I saying that wouldn't have happened if I didn't have the Islam [knockout loss]? I don't know," Volkanovski said. "Again, [Topuria's] very capable of knocking me out. Like I said, if I'm ever going to lose, it's someone catching me and he's a guy that can definitely do it. A lot of people were like, 'You were winning until you got caught.' Yeah, that was the case, but I still wasn't fighting my fight.

"I was worried about getting hit and I was freaking out in there and I remember sitting there, I was in two minds. Try not to get hit but then telling myself, 'You're alright. You'll come back to it. Relax.' If I was that worried, then why didn't I just shoot and be more defensive and just take him down and just hold him there, but then I would tell myself, 'You don't need to do that. You're alright.' … It was a tricky one. It was a tough one for me.

Losing to Topuria took an emotional toll on Volkanovski, as well as a physical one. The 36-year-old Australian felt lost after being dropped by Makhachev and his only thought was to book another fight as soon as possible to redeem himself.

"You've seen this footage of me sort of breaking down and not knowing what I'm—If I'm like this now, how am I going to be after the sport's done?" Volkanovski said. "That's what I was worried about. Then I was like I need to keep busy. Told the UFC I want to fight. I end up fighting just after three months later with a bad concussion. Most people have six months, no head contact, and then start camp. I started training, when you're training you're starting head contact pretty quickly."

As incredible as Topuria's knockout was, Volkanovski has said in the past that the head strike Makhachev landed on him was even more devastating. It left Volkanovski badly concussed and, he realizes now, considerably easier pickings for Topuria later on.

"A shin to the dome like that, that's proper contact to the brain," Volkanovski said. "That's trauma to the brain, direct brain trauma. It sounds terrible when I say it like that, but you get what I mean. You hit the chin and it rattles. This was bang and, like, direct contact. … I remember hearing it was like 'chzoooooo' and everything's just going all over the place. I was like, 'Noooo,' I knew what's happening, literally that's how it looked like.

"It looked like I was cross-eyed because everything was just everywhere and weird noises, but I was sort of there in a sense like, 'No,' like I knew what happened. 'Try and get yourself back together, defend yourself.' I couldn't defend myself my hands just wouldn't do what I wanted."