Alex Pereira gets a shot at greatness in the co-main event of UFC White House, moving up to heavyweight and challenging Ciryl Gane for the interim title on June 14, but top-ranked heavyweight Alexander Volkov takes issue with this matchmaking.
A former Bellator champion—who considers himself to be on a six-fight winning streak since his only defeat since 2022 was a controversial split decision loss to Gane—Volkov understands why the UFC opted to give the popular “Poatan” the chance at the belt after becoming champion at 185 and 205 pounds; that said, he doesn’t think it’s fair.
“It doesn’t matter who wins,” Volkov told MMA Fighting of UFC’s perspective of the fight. “If Ciryl Gane wins, he will beat a UFC star. He will go on the next media level. If Alex Pereira wins, he won like third title in his career, so he will be good. Anyway, UFC won with this fight. And it will be for sure not like a boring fight, but it’s not true title fight. It’s more like a promotional or media fight.”
Volkov believes this booking is great for both fighters, because it doesn’t expose them to the danger of facing a wrestler.
“[Gane has] never been under the pressure [of a wrestler],” Volkov said. “He never been with the kind of Curtis Blaydes guy who just can take him down and hold it for a while and then beat him up, make good ground-and-pound. We never see him in this position. We watched him a little bit with me in the third round, but I’m not a wrestler at all. The UFC gives him pretty comfortable fighters. And Alex Pereira is also a kickboxing guy and we didn’t see him also with good wrestlers. This fight is good for both of them.”
“Alex Pereira, for sure he’s very talented and he show, like, crazy performances,” he continued. “But, to be honest, [his] previous fight, before he won, he lost to [Magomed] Ankalaev. Then he beat Ankalaev, but I was in this camp, and Ankalaev was with broken ribs. He was just too confident himself to go in the cage. And probably Alex Pereira knows this and this is why he pushes so hard. He just lost to the guy, then he beats him with just broken rib, and now he want to go one category up, where he never fought, and they give him title shot. Like, in logic, it doesn’t have any sense. It’s just marketing. It’s nothing more about how many followers and how many fans he have. Maybe it’s good for UFC, maybe more people will watching this fight, maybe this they will do this White House card more loud, but it’s nothing about like a real champ.”
Volkov faces Waldo Cortes-Acosta on the main card of UFC 328 this Saturday in Newark, N.J., and understands he could earn a shot at the belt with an emphatic victory. It’s never a guarantee, though.
“Honestly, I don’t understand at all policy in the UFC about me because sometimes I hear different things about my future in UFC,” Volkov said. “The situation is, UFC give me fighters to challenge them, if they’re ready or not for UFC title right now. It was the same with [Jailton] Almeida. He was on a good win streak, they put it to fight with me and after after [his next] fight, they fired him. I’m just kind of on my way. I’m trying just showing everybody I became better and better. I’m ready for any fights.”
The 37-year-old veteran has fought 50 times as a professional MMA heavyweight, beating the likes of Fabricio Werdum, Alistair Overeem, Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Sergei Pavlovich during his 13-5 run in the UFC. With so much experience in the division, he feels Pereira could be easier competition given his size.
“For me, how I see this, I don’t want to disrespect anybody,” Volkov said. “Fighting with Alex Pereira will be more easy for me, but more big fight if he won. … I don’t know [how he will perform at heavyweight]. If his body is not genetic unique, it should be hard for him. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but we see his pictures. He has a lot of water in his body. It always makes cardio much worse, and punches and everything. And heavyweight is more heavy so you will spend much more energy than you spend in either light heavyweight or middleweight. It’s little bit different feeling. I truly believe that heavyweight and any other division is like two different types of sports. We need different abilities to fight in heavyweights in the lower division.”
“Putting Ciryl Gane against him, [Gane] is very athletic and he moves a lot. His movement is great. And the style of Alex Pereira is pushing the guy to the cage and try to punch him with no space, it will be very hard to do with Ciryl Gane. I met him in octagon in the first fight, it was problem to catch him because he moves a lot. This was a problem. And we see a lot of video with Ciryl Gane sparring with another boxers and kickboxers. It’s not about how much damage he can do to opponent, but we see how sneaky how he moves. During fight, when you come and you expect you can punch the guy with one punch and finish the fight and you can’t touch him, it’s very frustrating during the fight. I don’t know how Alex Pereira goes through this.
“But comparing me with Alex Pereira, he’s big, but I’m huge. I’m not saying he ever meet the guys like me and his stand is a little bit open for this type of big guys. He’s used to fight with the guys who try to attack him, can’t touch him and he counterpunch with his hook or uppercut, but it’s so hard to do with me because I’m much taller, I have good reach and I have very good kicks. I’m ready for kicks, I have heavy legs. More to this now, I’m working with a lot of wrestling. Now I have a lot of wrestling and jiu-jitsu skills, I work on this a lot. So I don’t know. Yeah, of course everything can happen, I can miss the punch, but on paper, I feel I have an advantage against Alex Pereira.
“So I don’t know how he will look in the heavyweight division, but it’s probably will be hard for him. It will be big challenge, and how he goes through this will show us, is he a real unique guy or something else? It’s interesting to see because honestly, he impressed me every time. I really respects his reach in our sport. He did so much. He one of the best. It’s very interesting to look at him. If I was a fan, I [would be] his fan for sure. He did a lot of things. But I’m on the other side of this line. I’m potential opponent right now because he came to heavyweight so I’m looking for him like in different way. I try to find his weak points and weak sides, but also I respect him.”
Regardless of his thoughts about Pereira and Gane fighting for an interim belt, Volkov sympathizes with Tom Aspinall being sidelined when there was such a big promotional opportunity for him in the UFC.
“Honestly, I’m most upset [for] Tom Aspinall,” Volkov said. “Imagine him in this situation. He did so much work for the UFC, he fought a lot of fights. He was on a very good winning streak, he showed really impressive fights for everybody. I was impressed with him, too. I fought with him, and he was very strong. And now we have Ciryl Gane, a guy who actually lost to me. I was just robbed and everybody’s watching, it’s a fact. It’s nothing I tried to put myself better than him. It was a bad day for him. He lost to me. Then he fought for the title, he injured the champ, he should be disqualified. But UFC give him another title [shot]. He injured the champ, who was like a really active champ in the UFC heavyweight division. [Gane] should be disqualified. He lose the fight for me, he injured [Aspinall]. It’s a very serious injury. We don’t know if he even come back in sport or not, if he even be the same.
“I feel how bad Tom Aspinall is feeling looking at this White House fight and then they give Ciryl Gane the biggest fight in his life with Alex Pereira,” he continued. “It’s just not fair to the champ. That’s why maybe I’m more disappointed, not about Ciryl Gane fighting Alex Pereira. It’s about whole situation. My situation is OK, I’m just going for the title. I’m on my way. I understand where I am. But what about Tom Aspinall, who was the champ and who just lost everything with just accident injury? The thing Ciryl Gane did in the fight with Tom Aspinall, it’s not first time he did this. He did this in a few fights before. He did this with our first fight. Our first fight was very close as well. He eye poked me in the last round, and I have this break. It was close fight, but I was pretty sure I am winning and then I stay in the fight and keep going. I don’t want to discuss about how fair it was about our decision in first fight, I’m just telling you facts. He did with me the same. It’s his kind of style. He do this a lot. He has good skills, but he’s a little bit dirty fighter.
“And we saw him also under a big pressure with Jon Jones, and he was like a kitten. He just broke him very fast. So he already did a few title shots, he didn’t look great in title shots under the pressure. We saw Jon Jones fight, we saw his fight with Tom Aspinall. He just broke the rules, and the UFC put him in again. I don’t understand this policy, so this disappoints me. I don’t want to tell anything personal about the Ciryl Gane, I’m just telling about facts what’s happened. I’m little bit like upset [for] Tom Aspinall, because he’s the most big challenge in the UFC right now. I see him very well-rounded as a fighter. I want to get this fight one day, to make a rematch with him to see myself if I get better or not after our first fight.”
In the end, all that matters for Volkov is to enter the octagon Saturday and get the job done against Cortes-Acosta and hope it puts him in a good position to finally challenge for UFC gold.
“First of all, I should win the Waldo Acosta [fight],” Volkov said. “He also is a very great warrior. He has a really hard punch, has unbelievable skills. I see him like a very hard opponent so first of all, I should go through this. I don’t want to look forward before this fight, so we’ll see what happens next. Maybe nothing good [laughs]. This is fights, everything happens any second so we can’t predict. I don’t want to tell a lot and then have a response for this to this world. I just do my job, I do it every day, very disciplined, put everything on the table to be better version of myself. This is what I do.”
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