“Actually, we didn’t have many chances,” the specialist was quoted by MMAnews. “But we got a good offer from the UFC, and Alex accepted. I didn’t even have time to get to Abu Dhabi and second him. Everything happened very fast and I had prior commitments that I couldn’t cancel. I just had time to review the video and sketch out a plan that, under the circumstances, gave us the best chance of winning”
“I didn’t even watch the fight – I was too scared of what might happen. I had a feeling it could be something like a knockout defeat. Obviously I didn’t want to be right, but unfortunately that’s what happened.”
In a recent interview, Alexander Volkanovski, who holds the UFC featherweight title, revealed that he agreed to accept a fight with Islam Makhachev on short notice in order to get out of a month-long bout.
Recall that the lightweight title fight, which headlined UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi last October, ended with the Russian winning by first-round knockout.