John McCarthy criticized the UFC’s decision to rematch Makhachev and Volkanovski

“It won’t be fair to the Wolf,” Big John said in a recent episode of his podcast. “And I’m not saying this because of how this fight went. Wolf moved up in weight to fight Makhachev. Now he has to come down to fight Yair and I understand why the UFC wants that. But the Wolf will have to shed the weight he has put on, lose the muscle, and then get back up and try to do it again.”

“It’s not fair to him. It would be fair to let him stay in this form and give him the opportunity to have a rematch with Islam. It would be really fair to Volkanovski, because moving between weight classes is very difficult.”

McCarthy’s co-host, Josh Thomson, also shared his thoughts on the matter.

“I was surprised by this decision because they could have made money off it,” Thomson said. “What happens if Alex goes downstairs and loses to Yair? Or will Islam lose to the next challenger, Dariush or Charles? What then? They will lose the money fight”

“Or maybe Dana White just didn’t like this fight? He may have been impressed with Alex, but not impressed with Islam. Or, this fight did not bring the profit they were counting on? If this was a fight that would bring them a lot of money, they would have done it immediately, there is no doubt about it. Dana would not miss the opportunity to fight, where you can make good money. And so any of them can lose, and that’s all, goodbye revenge “

On February 11, at UFC 284 in Perth, Islam Makhachev successfully defended the UFC lightweight championship belt, defeating Alexander Volkanovski by unanimous decision, however, he could not dislodge the Australian, who holds the UFC featherweight title, from the first line of the ranking of the best fighters of the organization, regardless of weight.