Coach reveals Alexander Volkanovski had ‘bits of broken bone in his elbow’ during his infamous UFC featherweight title fight

Nov 04, 2024

The former featherweight champion is expected to make his return at UFC 312 in Australia next February, with his head coach already irritated by how long ‘The Great’ has been out of action.

“I would have said 6-8 months was plenty,” explained head coach Joe Lopez in a recent interview, before revealing that Alexander Volkanovski had actually fought through a series of secret and severe injuries during his featherweight title reign.

Following his knockout loss to Ilia Topuria back in February, the biggest narrative surrounding Volkanovski was that the popular Australian had come back way too soon from his KO defeat to Islam Makhachev.

Speaking with Submission Radio this week, head coach Joe Lopez shared that despite a successful training camp for ‘El Matador’, Volkanovski was still compromised from the knockout to Makhachev – which took place just four months earlier.

“It probably wasn’t until we got in there [that we realized], but it was probably one of our better camps,” said coach Lopez, before revealing that Volkanovski had already been fighting through some rather serious issues during his iconic title reign.

“Alex went into his last three fights [compromised] – especially with the Yair [Rodriguez] fight… Alex couldn’t use his left arm for probably three-quarters of the camp because he had bits of broken bone in his elbow.

“When he punched after a while in camp with the wrestling, it would lock up and he didn’t have the movement that he needed. A lot of the time, he just couldn’t throw his left hand [at all].”

Despite the serious injury, the Australian would go on to put a beating on Yair Rodriguez, stopping him in the third round to retain his featherweight crown in the main event of UFC 290.

Volkanovski underwent surgery to correct the injured elbow following the infamous rematch with the Russian lightweight king later that same year, but before he stepped back in there against Topuria.

Whilst coach Lopez noted that’s no excuse for his recent skid, he did note that having such secret issues might have been plaguing Volkanovski’s mind when he faced ‘El Matador’.

“That was the first time in three camps that he didn’t have any elbow pain… There are no excuses there, maybe mentally, but for me as a coach, you think you know the guy and Alex probably thought the same too but maybe the punch that he could normally take, he didn’t take… Not taking anything away from Ilia, because Ilia’s a very powerful man.”

Speaking of Topuria, coach Lopez was steadfast in his desire not to give any early tactics away; with the prevailing theory that Volkanovski will rematch the Spanish-Georgian sensation sometime in early 2025.

“I don’t want to say too much, we’ll change a few things around and we’ll play what’s in front of us… Hopefully, we get Ilia playing our game rather than us playing his.”

The second option, should Topuria want some time out, would be for Volkanovski to fight Brazilian Diego Lopes for an interim title; coach Lopez is happy with either matchup, as long as his next bout is booked soon.

“It’d be nice to go to Spain and have a fight, but it would be good to fight in Australia – all Volk and I want to do is get back in there because it’s been way too long… I would have said 6-8 months [out] was plenty but now we’re coming up to 12 months, yeah, it’s a bit too long.”

Alexander Volkanovski remains the #1 ranked featherweight contender with Lopes retaining the #3 spot – although he will likely move into second after Max Holloway confirmed that he’s done with 145lbs.