Alexander Volkanovski had barely finished defending his featherweight title at UFC 333 when he started describing his exit. Championship Rounds posted his comments on X, and the champion was specific about what would get him to hang them up:
“I don’t want to hold divisions up, but I believe we could do this and not hold the divisions up. That’s something I’d retire for. If they want to give me that opportunity, win or lose I’d retire.”
The opponent he has in mind is Justin Gaethje, which means a trip up to 155 pounds.
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Volkanovski earned the right to ask. He finished Movsar Evloev in the second round on Oct. 24 to keep the belt, and he now sits at 29-4 and No. 1 at featherweight in the Knockout Daily rankings. He’s a two-time UFC featherweight champion, and that win made him the oldest man to successfully defend the 145-pound title, at 38. The UFC had him No. 2 pound-for-pound as of June.
Gaethje is the current UFC lightweight champion at 28-5. He last fought June 14, and he was No. 3 on the UFC pound-for-pound list as of Sept. 22. He became the oldest lightweight champion in UFC history when he won the belt at 37. The two were born less than two months apart in 1988, so this would be a fight between a pair of champions who are both past the age where most fighters get sold on “one more.”
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The entertainment math is easy. Gaethje has 17 post-fight bonuses in 16 UFC appearances, the best bonus rate the promotion has ever recorded, plus a record 11 Fight of the Night awards. Deadspin called the pairing the superfight the UFC needs right now.
The Early Odds
FightBook MMA ran an early odds piece on the matchup under a headline asking whether Volkanovski could win. That framing casts the smaller champion as the one with something to prove, which is how bouts like this usually open. I’ll wait for an actual number before getting excited about the Aussie as a live dog. Size isn’t a foreign concept to him, either. He weighed 214 pounds during his rugby league days and fought amateur bouts at middleweight before cutting all the way down to featherweight.
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No bout has been announced. Volkanovski’s own condition, that nobody’s division gets frozen, is the hurdle. The ball now sits with the UFC, and with a lightweight champion who last fought June 14.
