What happened to Volk shows why...

[Mike]

It's important to cement your legacy completely in your own weight class before you think about moving up. We've seen GSP, Jones, Silva etc. get criticism for not going up to fight the dominant champ above them. But they clearly valued establishing themselves as the goat at their own weight class first.

Going into the Topuria fight all I heard from him was how easily he was gonna put this guy away, zero challenge. Then maybe fight some other lw contender to work towards another lw shot because clearly nobody at fw had anything for him. You can't be looking past contenders like that. Now he's suffered two brutal kos and his chin might be compromised completely. And if he never regains the belt MANY people will say he isn't the fw goat.

 

[Fengxian]

Even if he regains the belt Aldo is still the goat. 7 title defense in UFC.

And Volk wants to get dual champ as it is the popular thing nowadays and want some big payday.

 

[jooohnmatrix]

He got too big for his own boots

 

[Tweak896]

He wasn't too far off from getting old, so I think he went up to try at the right time. He just spent so much of it with Max rematches he fucked his own legacy. There are lots of guys at FW now he hasn't fought. He only defended against KZ and Ortega besides Max. I think if he skipped Max and took out Allen, Emmet, and Movsar, his legacy would look better than it is.

 

[FeelingFroggy]

He seemed more interested in parading around like Mrs. Doubtfire than not fighting like a dork with his chin exposed.

 

[Jbulldog1x]

Pretty sure 4 months is not long enough to recover from a KO. Great punch while in the mix but your brain has to fully heal.

 

[humdizzle]

he got high on his own supply

thought he could drink booze and take a short notice fight against islam
then thought he could bounce back in 4 months and fight topuria

 

[LouDee16]

It's important to cement your legacy completely in your own weight class before you think about moving up. We've seen GSP, Jones, Silva etc. get criticism for not going up to fight the dominant champ above them. But they clearly valued establishing themselves as the goat at their own weight class first.

Going into the Topuria fight all I heard from him was how easily he was gonna put this guy away, zero challenge. Then maybe fight some other lw contender to work towards another lw shot because clearly nobody at fw had anything for him. You can't be looking past contenders like that. Now he's suffered two brutal kos and his chin might be compromised completely. And if he never regains the belt MANY people will say he isn't the fw goat.

does everyone not realize that Islam was a head kick.. it was nowhere near his chin...

 

[GrantB13]

I don't even care about double champ status anymore. I barely did from the beginning actually, but especially these days it's just not interesting when every champ wants to do it without even defending. The media still makes it out be this monumental god-like achievement but I swear if you give every single champ an instant title match in another weight a lot of them would win. It's not as big of a deal as it first appeared.

 

[J-Pac]

Meh, he risked it for the biscuit. Aldo is still the GOAT based on dominance over time but if Volk had pulled it off against Islam he'd have a great argument. He took a huge risk and it didn't pan out. He still had an insane career on top and is firmly the number 2 of all time at 145. I think he should call it a career at this point, two KOs only a few months apart at age 35 is bad. Don't wanna see him stick around too long like Frankie did.

 

[nostradumbass]

I think you have that backwards. Topuria was the one saying it would be his easiest fight and there no were no contenders at FW who deserve to fight him, and wanted to fight Conor. I might have just missed it, but I didn't see anything from Volk that was overlooking Topuria.

Volk is 35. He took the chance while he could to move up and challenge for the LW belt. His chances at a 2nd belt wouldn't have improved if he'd waited a couple more years. The other guys you mentioned weren't so much wanting to cement their legacy before moving up so much as waiting for a better matchup, or Anderson who took some LHW fights but didn't seem interested in the LHW title.

It's easy to say it was a bad decision now that you already know he lost, but he had already established himself as a dominant FW champ for years with a good number of defenses, and got a good opportunity to fight for the LW belt with the most things in his favor that he could have possibly had(home crowd, familiar time zone, shortened rehydration time) and came up short, but after that it was a now or never when he accepted the rematch that didn't have those things in his favor. Getting KO'd a few months earlier probably did have an effect of his confidence, and obviously physically it's not good either, but you take the opportunities your'e given because there's no guarantee that they'll come again.

 

[Buff]

It's important to cement your legacy completely in your own weight class before you think about moving up. We've seen GSP, Jones, Silva etc. get criticism for not going up to fight the dominant champ above them. But they clearly valued establishing themselves as the goat at their own weight class first.

Going into the Topuria fight all I heard from him was how easily he was gonna put this guy away, zero challenge. Then maybe fight some other lw contender to work towards another lw shot because clearly nobody at fw had anything for him. You can't be looking past contenders like that. Now he's suffered two brutal kos and his chin might be compromised completely. And if he never regains the belt MANY people will say he isn't the fw goat.

This is the best take I've read on the Volk situation so far.

Now that he went up and lost, everyone can say "he never should have just stayed where he was", but if he didn't then its "Volk never wanted to challenge himself" and so on.

Dude gambled big, and hard... Admirable at the time, now looks short-sighted.

It is what it is.

 

[ufcfan4]

Well said. Volk never struck me as a guy who bought into his own hype or anything like that but he certainly spoke as though moving to LW for good was an inevitability because of how successful he was at 145.

I am curious about what money they offered him to fight Islam a second time and save that main event. My guess it was a very large amount, regardless of what was disclosed. I don't see Volk as a hubris type of guy so I think the only way they got him into that bout was really making it worth his while financially. Obviously the result was bad for him and perhaps for his longevity, too, but the money might have made it more palatable to him rather than it being perceived as a total loss.

Getting back in there so quickly to fight Topuria definitely strikes me as gutsy but also a pride thing. He felt bad about the loss to Islam, more specifically, the way he lost, and was looking to wash that away with a big victory against an undefeated fighter in his own weight class. Perhaps rushed it because he was anxious to get back in there and make a statement. It's the hindsight effect, but it clearly seems like he would have been better off waiting.

Topuria, however, is younger, has a really effective style and age obviously becomes more of a liability for the lower weight class guys so it might have been a tough road for Volk regardless of how long he waited to get back in there.

 

[Lee Danger]

i don't blame him, it's a job and he took some opportunities when the iron was hot.
i just think that the vast majority of athletes don't value "the legacy" as some fans do.
he, for sure, didn't call himself the GOAT and, btw, i don't think that he fighting Islam two times was a contributing cause to his loss against Topuria.

 

[blaseblase]

He BJ Penned his career. Had he stayed at featherweight it's entirely possible he surpasses Aldo's legacy and has most people believing he is FW GOAT. Moving up in weight is a risky decision that only pays off if you win.

 

[SeattleFightFan]

It's important to cement your legacy completely in your own weight class before you think about moving up. We've seen GSP, Jones, Silva etc. get criticism for not going up to fight the dominant champ above them. But they clearly valued establishing themselves as the goat at their own weight class first.

Going into the Topuria fight all I heard from him was how easily he was gonna put this guy away, zero challenge. Then maybe fight some other lw contender to work towards another lw shot because clearly nobody at fw had anything for him. You can't be looking past contenders like that. Now he's suffered two brutal kos and his chin might be compromised completely. And if he never regains the belt MANY people will say he isn't the fw goat.

Champ Champ is just a cheat code to a legacy.

Or seemingly. Folks aren't looking back too fondly on the careers of Conor, Penn and Cejudo right now....

 

[fortheo]

He wasn't too far off from getting old, so I think he went up to try at the right time. He just spent so much of it with Max rematches he fucked his own legacy. There are lots of guys at FW now he hasn't fought. He only defended against KZ and Ortega besides Max. I think if he skipped Max and took out Allen, Emmet, and Movsar, his legacy would look better than it is.

Here I was thinking he defended against yair too.....and when we're saying "he only defended against 3 guys, plus max multiple times".....then damn you guys have high standards.


His legacy is fine lmao. 2nd most accomplished fw ever.

 

[Tweak896]

Here I was thinking he defended against yair too.....and when we're saying "he only defended against 3 guys, plus max multiple times".....then damn you guys have high standards.


His legacy is fine lmao. 2nd most accomplished fw ever.

Whoops yeah forgot about Yair, my bad. That does make it better than Usman tier. I put him at 2nd too. I still feel like if the Islam matches + max rematches were fresh contenders he'd be #1.

 

[RonDante]

Even if he regains the belt Aldo is still the goat. 7 title defense in UFC.

And Volk wants to get dual champ as it is the popular thing nowadays and want some big payday.

Volk has better quality than Aldo with less losses

 

[fortheo]

Well said. Volk never struck me as a guy who bought into his own hype or anything like that but he certainly spoke as though moving to LW for good was an inevitability because of how successful he was at 145.

I am curious about what money they offered him to fight Islam a second time and save that main event. My guess it was a very large amount, regardless of what was disclosed. I don't see Volk as a hubris type of guy so I think the only way they got him into that bout was really making it worth his while financially. Obviously the result was bad for him and perhaps for his longevity, too, but the money might have made it more palatable to him rather than it being perceived as a total loss.

Getting back in there so quickly to fight Topuria definitely strikes me as gutsy but also a pride thing. He felt bad about the loss to Islam, more specifically, the way he lost, and was looking to wash that away with a big victory against an undefeated fighter in his own weight class. Perhaps rushed it because he was anxious to get back in there and make a statement. It's the hindsight effect, but it clearly seems like he would have been better off waiting.

Topuria, however, is younger, has a really effective style and age obviously becomes more of a liability for the lower weight class guys so it might have been a tough road for Volk regardless of how long he waited to get back in there.

His coach said the increase in pay was substantial, and he repeated the word substantial for emphasis. The more interesting part of this story to me is not volk taking the fight, but how badly the UFC wanted to offer up their p4p number 1 guy at the time (volk) to islam on short notice after surgery....just to please their Abu Dhabi benefactors. Don't get me wrong, volk accepted, so he shares the blame, but the UFC's part in going out of their way to make that fight happen instead of just giving the fight to the fully prepared backup fighter in gamrot still disgusts me.