A "what if" tought experiment involving Volk and Topuria.

[Rubios]

Let's imagine if the contender for the FW belt against a plethoric and full of confidence Volk coming from a close loss against Islam and ranked as the #1 P4P...

...had been Ilia instead of Yair?

Who'd you pick to win this hypothetical match?

 

[Sean Chowdhury]

Ilia wins again, I think volk looked good against Ilia. He was doing what he always does, moving laterally, jabbing from both stances, and trying to circle off the cage when he got pressured. Ilia just had better boxing and power than anyone he fought, which was proven when Ilia knocked out holloway in 3 rounds when volk could not over 15 rounds

 

[Hank Grill]

Volk has too much pride to say the paint fumes affected him. Get Volk in a locker room that isn't freshly painted it goes way differently

 

[HHJ]

We will never know. But....


Max was confident and never been knocked out.

 

[Rubios]

Ilia wins again, I think volk looked good against Ilia. He was doing what he always does, moving laterally, jabbing from both stances, and trying to circle off the cage when he got pressured. Ilia just had better boxing and power than anyone he fought, which was proven when Ilia knocked out holloway in 3 rounds when volk could not over 15 rounds

I think Volk looked almost like having PTSD in that fight. Exactly: he jabbed and thrown a low kick here and there, but didn't go on with a single combination.

The KO sequence started with Volk panicking going backwards. No lateral movement, no boxing or teeping while retreating to keep the distance, not even shelling in a high guard.

Going backwards chin up with very sloppy footwork.

This was not Volk. The reaction leading to his KO -and I'm not exaggerating a bit- was that of someone that's starting to spar.