All-conquering UFC featherweight champion Alexander “The Great” Volkanovski has proved to be the class of the field at 145 pounds, and he said the time may soon come for him to move up to 155 pounds to face newer, bigger tests.
Speaking to ESPN’s Megan Olivi after his fourth-round TKO finish of Chan Sung Jung in Jacksonville, Volkanovski said his aim is for constant improvement to keep him ahead of the pack at featherweight.
“I just keep working hard, always improving. I said all week, I just keep raising the bar,” he said.
“Even though I believe I’m well ahead of all these guys, I just want to be better than I was last time. I’ve got the drive to just keep getting better. And you’ve seen it time and time again.”
Such was Volkanovski’s dominance over Jung, the Aussie admitted that he started to feel concern for his opponent as the number of heavy strikes on the South Korean contender started to pile up.
“Towards the end, I was like, ‘Ah, let’s start capitalising a little bit more, because he’s definitely started slowing down a little bit,'” he said.
“He’s the type of guy that you know, will catch you coming in, so I was always wary of that. But then I started realising that he just didn’t know when I was coming in. So then I started capitalising.
“I was landing some huge shots (and he) kept going, I can’t believe how hard his head was. Some of those shots were absolutely massive, and he just kept going.
“I felt bad. Fourth round I go, ‘Man, are you all right? Like, I don’t want you to get keep going (and get hurt).’ I started feeling bad because he’s not a bad dude. But I had to put him away.”
Volkanovski’s win extended his overall win streak to 21, with his last 11 coming in the UFC octagon. And he said it might not be long before he looks at the weight division above for new challenges.
“As I said, if this division isn’t going to sort itself ASAP, let’s start looking at lightweight then,” he stated.
“Maybe we’ve got to move up and do something up there, we’ll see. We’ll just see what this division is doing. Obviously, there was a fight (with Max Holloway) that was meant to be scheduled for this (event). We’ll see if that’s going to be an option.
“Obviously, we’ll talk to Sean Shelby and Dana and talk business. And then we’ll see what the division’s doing. There are so many guys that are close. Go out, take the number one spot, and then I won’t move up. I’ll go in and bash the next one.”
