Alexander Volkanovski’s trainer, Eugene Bareman, believes that a unification bout against Yair Rodriguez in the featherweight division will be a more difficult challenge for his ward than a title rematch with Islam Makhachev in the lightweight category.
“It’s not for me to decide, but for the team, but if you ask me, I believe that we already have a featherweight fight, and no one knows what Islam will do next,” the specialist said in an interview with Ariel Helwani. “If Alex decides to fight Yair, it will be a difficult fight for many reasons, much more difficult than the Makhachev fight.”
“It is more complex for the simple reason that we can calculate everything that Islam does, and Yair shows something new in every fight. His punches and actions are unpredictable, and he changes the pattern in every fight, so it will be very difficult to prepare for a duel with him. In this regard, Rodriguez is a more difficult opponent for us than Makhachev.”
Last weekend at UFC 284 in Perth, Islam Makhachev successfully defended the UFC lightweight championship belt by defeating Alex Volkanovski by unanimous decision, and Yair Rodriguez won the interim UFC featherweight title in the second most significant event of the event, finishing with Josh Emmett’s triangle choke finish.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/30808-trener-volkanovski-rodriges-bolee-slozhnyj-sopernik-chem-makhachev.html?rand=19907
