Alexander Volkanovski would have loved to fight Conor McGregor.
Featherweight champion Volkanovski (27-5 MMA, 14-4 UFC) was asked about his dream opponent past or present, and he picked the former UFC dual-champion and the sport’s biggest star.
“Probably Conor, man,” Volkanovski said on “The Unscripted Show”. “A lot of people are going to sit there and be like, ‘Oh yeah, Conor is a boring answer,’ but remember he was in the featherweight division, that era when he was just an absolute superstar.
“The position you could put yourself at in just fighting that guy – when you talk about building your platform, when we talk about money and all that, not only UFC, but as you get up, you can get better money. But the platform you’re on, you need to take advantage of it and that’s one fast track to build some hype around you, and getting people to notice you.”
McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC) started off his UFC tenure at featherweight, where he finished Chad Mendes by TKO to capture the interim title at UFC 189. He then scored an iconic 13-second knockout of Jose Aldo to unify the belts at UFC 194, before moving up to lightweight to dethrone Eddie Alvarez by knockout in a flawless performance at UFC 205. “The Notorious” became the UFC’s first simultaneous two-division champion.
“He was a good fighter. He was a great fighter,” Volkanovski said of McGregor. “He was another fighter that his accuracy – he was actually a bit ahead of his time. He was really good. I don’t think people give him credit. ‘He was just a good knockout artist. He just had powerful punches.’
“No, he had great timing, great set ups, good understanding of what works and what works for him, and yeah, he was sharp. A lot of that is gone now. He’s probably going to be reasonably sharp, but he’s never going to be that same Conor McGregor. But he was good. You have to fight the right fight against him.”
