Former UFC flyweight champion T.J. Dillashaw shared his opinion on what caused Alexander Volkanovski’s early loss to Elijah Topuria.
“I don’t know what Wolf’s plan for the fight was,” MMAnews quoted the American as saying. “I’d like to get inside his head before I make a full judgment. I know he was afraid of the power of his opponent. I can tell from the way he fought that he was afraid of Topuria’s knockout power – to a certain extent, that’s the way it should have been.”
“He’d never fought like that before. All he did in the first two rounds was throw leg kicks. He wasn’t really aiming, just throwing them out, expecting Topuria to block them. I thought that was his way of trying to slow his hands down. Every time Topuria came closer, Alex would just back up and deflect backwards. As soon as I saw that, I thought, ‘Damn, he’s going to get caught!’ He fought cautiously, worried about his opponent’s power. That was his mistake. He was afraid of his opponent’s power and fought scared.”
Recall that the featherweight title fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Elijah Topuria, which headlined last weekend’s UFC 298 event in Anaheim, ended in the second round with a knockout loss for the Australian.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/33985-dillashou-nazval-prichinu-porazheniya-volkanovski-v-boyu-s-topuriej.html?rand=19907