Alexander Volkanovski just isn’t interested in another bout against Max Holloway.
Since his extremely close fight against the former UFC Featherweight Champion at UFC 251, many feel that Holloway deserves one more shot at the 145-pound belt including Dana White himself, who once again alluded to giving Holloway another opportunity at the title earlier this week in his interview with ESPN:
“Well, here’s the thing,” White said. “Calvin Kattar just fought. Yair Rodriguez has a fight coming up. (Korean) ‘Zombie’ has a fight coming up. Ortega and Zabit – all of these guys are going to fight in the next couple of months here. We’ll see how that all plays out. It’s hard to not say we can give Max a rematch for that fight again – do it a third time. I think all of the fans and the media would agree with that. I don’t know for sure.”
However, Volkanovski has already expressed his disinterest in fighting Holloway for the third time as the UFC Featherweight Champion has proven to be the better fighter on two different occasions and doesn’t feel that a third match-up makes any sense:
“It’s pretty clear when you win back-to-back, two wins in a row, to make a third one, it doesn’t really make sense – especially right now,” Volkanovski told Submission Radio in a recent interview. “Again, we know that last fight was close but the judges gave me the decision and that’s that. In the first fight, even though it was competitive, I pretty clearly won that fight. To just give him another rematch straight away and put the division on hold, it just doesn’t really make sense.”
Volkanovski isn’t turning down the idea of facing Holloway sometime in the future; however, the 31-year-old just wants to fight fresh new challengers right now:
“(White) was throwing it out there but at the same time, he was saying the exact thing I’m saying,” Volkanovski said. “In this division, we’ve got all these guys about to fight. By the end of the year, we’re going to have a clear No. 1 – and you’re going to just keep giving Max rematches? … I won twice in back-to-back (fights). You know what I mean? It just doesn’t really make sense right now. Again, it’s definitely something that can be a big fight in the future, as well.”
“For right now, I’ve got a division I want to hold and I don’t want to keep on hold,” Volkanovski said. “You know what I mean? I want No. 1 contenders. I want some fresh blood in there. We’ll see who that is.”