The man who just got stopped by Alexander Volkanovski made the best case for him.
“He’s like good wine. Older, stronger, better,” Movsar Evloev said after UFC 333, in a clip UFC on Paramount+ posted on X. He went on to call Volkanovski a legend.
That’s a generous read from a guy who’d just been finished in the second round. Volkanovski beat Evloev by TKO in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 24 and kept the featherweight belt, and Sherdog ran with the obvious follow-up: whether the win reopens the argument over who the greatest 145-pounder ever is.
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The case on paper
Volkanovski is 29-4 and sits No. 1 at featherweight in the Knockout Daily rankings. He’s a two-time UFC featherweight champion, the first Australian-born fighter to win a UFC title, and the owner of the most featherweight title wins in UFC history. He became the oldest man to win the belt at 36 and the oldest to defend it at 38. Evloev was right about the wine.
The other side of the ledger belongs to Jose Aldo. The Brazilian was the inaugural and longest-reigning UFC featherweight champ, defended that title seven times, defended the WEC belt twice, and won 18 straight before Conor McGregor ended the run at UFC 194 in December 2015. Sherdog called him “the greatest featherweight in mixed martial arts history” in its April 2017 pound-for-pound rankings. Fight Matrix still has Aldo first all time at featherweight, with Volkanovski second.
Aldo is now 32-10 and ranked No. 23 here, last fighting in May 2025. Volkanovski is still adding to his pile, which is the whole problem for anyone defending the old order. Aldo’s résumé is finished. Volkanovski’s apparently isn’t.
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What he wants next
Volkanovski didn’t spend the post-fight talking about Aldo. He talked about Justin Gaethje, and about leaving.
“I don’t want to hold divisions up, but I believe we could do this and not hold the divisions up,” he said, per Championship Rounds on X. “That’s something I’d retire for. If they want to give me that opportunity, win or lose I’d retire.”
That’s a champion answering a question straight, which I’ll take every time. It also complicates the GOAT math. A lightweight farewell against Gaethje wouldn’t add a featherweight defense, so if Volkanovski walks after that fight, the featherweight résumé he has right now is the one the argument gets settled on.
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No fight has been booked. For now the most recent image from the night is Volkanovski posing for a photo with Petr Yan, who also won on the card, both men grinning like they’d just gotten out of the office early.
