What happened to Volk shows why...

[Blazeblack]

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.

No it's not. If the 2nd Islam fight had happened in Vegas or California he would have received a 6 month suspension. That's 6 months where you are supposed to have zero head trauma, that means no sparring.

I've fought for, and won titles from the IKF (International Kickboxing Federation). Every time I've fought for them, I had to fill out a document stating that I have not suffered any kind of concussion within the last 3 months.
If you get ko'd/ tko'd, they suspend you. If it comes out that you suffered a concussion leading into a fight, you are probably going to get your fight pulled and receive a suspension.

I'm pretty sure that all the other credible sactioning bodies that operate here in the states do the same thing.

 

[Team SerJoe]

the bar has been set by previous champions and now the apex of the sport is to go for double champ status. It’s just the landscape of the sport nowadays. Being the GOAT of a division can be somewhat subjective in certain weight classes, and I don’t recall that really being a goal a fighter specifically went for in the same way achieving double champ status is sought after.

Being the dominant champion he was, Volk was merely shooting for the pinnacle of the sport. Can’t knock that.

 

[Ozze]

The move up to fight Islam was not a bad decision, even if he lost.
He could still come back and dominate his division. That loss to Islam would not look bad in retrospective because Islam is a great fighter too.

But the short notice fight was a mistake.
Maybe he got paid a shitload of cash and he got to look out for his family and all, but it came at a heavy cost.

 

[kingofthecans]

Shows why ya need to take some time off in this sport or certain others.

 

[chardog]

the guy has a pretty solid legacy

doesnt help that he was getting old

his biggest mistake was short notice machachev fight

 

[Paolo Delutis]

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

U cant be serious

 

[ufcfan4]

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 happen instead of just giving the fight to the fully prepared backup fighter in gamrot still disgusts me.

Really great point. It sadly shows how much the bottom line and the short-term gain is prized above the long-term value. I completely blanked on the fact that Gamrot was on standby. He essentially was denied an opportunity, too.

 

[World eater]

The move up to fight Islam was not a bad decision, even if he lost.
He could still come back and dominate his division. That loss to Islam would not look bad in retrospective because Islam is a great fighter too.

But the short notice fight was a mistake.
Maybe he got paid a shitload of cash and he got to look out for his family and all, but it came at a heavy cost.

Everything he did was done the right way, apart from the Islam rematch.
And, just for the record, beating Max 3 times is a monumental feat at FW. Were it not for Volk, we would be talking about Max in the goat discussions.

 

[bean88]

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

Chin in this context refers to ability to take a hit, Volks brain got rattled by Islam head kicking him which is known to reduce future ability to take punishment

I don’t think people are suggesting Volks literal chin was weakened due to him getting kicked on the side of his head

 

[IronGolem007]

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.

Completely concur.

Pacquiao = the greatest "weight-jumper" in the history of the Universe ... but the rest don't matter. Pacquiao is in a class by himself.

But, ultimately, longevity in a legit division means more than "going for titles" in multiple divisions.

 

[Blazeblack]

The move up to fight Islam was not a bad decision, even if he lost.
He could still come back and dominate his division. That loss to Islam would not look bad in retrospective because Islam is a great fighter too.

But the short notice fight was a mistake.
Maybe he got paid a shitload of cash and he got to look out for his family and all, but it came at a heavy cost.

Yeah, his age has to be a factor but it's not that unheard of for guys in their mid 30's to sill be top fighters in the lighterweights in boxing. The big difference is that older elite boxers pace themselves and aren't pressured to take short notice fights like the UFC does.

You can be an elite fighter up into your late 30's, but the older you get the more you have to work around the diminished recuperative abilities. On the plus side, men are typically at thier physically strongest in thier early to mid 30's. Since it's typically the time where your muscles and bones are at their most dense.

 

[Dorkman]

He got too big for his own boots

I like Volk, but yeah 100%. Between thinking it was a good idea to fight Islam again with no camp fresh off a injury I think required a bit of surgery. To basically mocking Topuria and downplaying any chance he has, to take that even further by saying he'd be down to save UFC 300 afterward before he even got in the cage for the fight he already had booked. Volk has been really feeling himself since taking Islam to a close decision their first fight. He wasn't like that when he was crushing contenders. Confident yes, but he wasn't dismissive of things like thinking he had anything for a fully prepped Islam on no notice, and thinking his result against Topuria was already a lock pretty much.

 

[Fight Professor]

Volk needs to get respect for being so active. He has fought 4 times since last February. Aldo was defending once every 10 months on average.

But the Islam rematch was a mistake.

 

[checktheknuckles]

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

Chin is a part of your head.

 

[JustBreed]

He went up at the perfect time in my opinion. It was probably the peak of his prime (or maybe that was Holloway 3). His big mistake was taking the second fight at LW on short notice.

He completely bought his own hype. He really needs to take a look at the situation now and work out what he needs to do differently style wise. If he comes back fighting safer like GSP, I'd say it's the right move, but I don't think he will -- he's too proud.

 

[Edz519]

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

This can't be a serious question right?

 

[TankAbbott4Eva]

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.

The way I see it Volk's first loss to Islam cemented his legacy as a P4P great. Going up in weight to fight a dominant champ who is a grappler and much bigger and nearly winning, that's GOAT shit.