NEWARK, N.J. – Alexander Volkov met the media Saturday after his win over Waldo Cortes-Acosta at UFC 328.
Volkov (40-11 MMA, 14-5 UFC) took a unanimous decision from Cortes-Acosta (17-3 MMA, 10-3 UFC) in their featured heavyweight bout on the main card at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. The 37-year-old now has back-to-back wins and may have put himself in the title picture.
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Volkov said he had to be wary of what could happen to him if he wasn’t careful against Cortes-Acosta. He still hasn’t forgotten about the time he was up on the scorecards against Derrick Lewis, but got caught with a late Hail Mary.
And no one else seems to let him forget about it, either.
“Maybe it wasn’t so impressive, but Waldo is a fcking tough motherfcker,” Volkov said at his post-fight news conference. “Nobody can finish him. I knocked him down in the second round, but he was so accurate with his strikes. I learned the lesson in 2018 when Derrick Lewis did the same and caught me at the very end of the fight.
“Everybody reminds me of this again and again every time they see me. So I know this lesson very good. So with these tough motherf*ckers who can punch every minute of the fight, better to be very accurate and just give him a lot of damage.”
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Lewis is one of only two people to put Volkov away with punches, and the big Russian said it pops into his head in the cage – including against “WCA” on Saturday.
“It’s flashbacks every time,” he said. “I just keep telling myself, ‘Be focused, be accurate until the end – move, don’t relax, don’t feel like you can beat him.'”
If Volkov is in the title picture at heavyweight, he isn’t sure what to think about it, though.
An interim title will be divvied out next month when Ciryl Gane takes on former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira. If Pereira wins it, he’ll make history as the UFC’s first three-division titleholder. But regardless of who wins, champ Tom Aspinall waits.
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And that means a unifier could be well into the future – and if Volkov waits around, he surely will be passing up on key chances for fights late in his career.
But as it is, he said he’s actually scared of heavyweight title talk.
“I’m so scared to fight for the title, honestly,” Volkov said. “(Cortes-Acosta) is so big, so huge, so talented. I don’t know what I’m doing here in the top two, honestly. It’s so hard to be there. … I was in my room today. I didn’t want to go out. I hid in my closet and coach couldn’t find me. I almost missed the bus to the arena.
“So I don’t know what I will do when I fight for a title. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I was so brave after the win, but now I’ve come down a little bit. I don’t know why I did this.”
Check out Volkov’s post-fight interview in the video above.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Alexander Volkov reveals fear of fighting for UFC heavyweight title
