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UFC bantamweight star Sean O’Malley has put forth his opinion regarding reigning UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski. Ahead of Volkanovski’s highly-anticipated return to the octagon at UFC 273, O’Malley directed words of high praise towards him, hailing ‘The Great’ as someone who’s incredibly hard to beat.
Volkanovski won the UFC featherweight title by defeating Max Holloway via unanimous decision at UFC 245 in December 2019. He beat Holloway again in their rematch at UFC 251 in July 2020, successfully defending his title via split decision. Following this, ‘The Great’ notched another successful title defense by beating Brian Ortega via unanimous decision at UFC 266 in September 2021.
In an edition of The BrOMalley Show, Sean and his brother Daniel O’Malley discussed multiple topics, including Volkanovski’s upcoming fight against ‘The Korean Zombie’, aka Chan Sung Jung. Sean O’Malley notably harked back to Volkanovski’s impressive second-round TKO win over Chad Mendes at UFC 232 in December 2018, as well as his pair of victories over Holloway. ‘Sugar’ stated:
“Dude, Alexander Volkanovski is a motherf****r, dude. He’s so hard to beat. I feel like, after watching him do what he’s been able to do – Max (Holloway); even when he (Volkanovski) fought Chad Mendes, like, that fight was so sick. It was a while ago.”
Watch Sean O’Malley give his take on Alexander Volkanovski and more in the video below:
Dan Hooker on Alexander Volkanovski’s fight against ‘The Korean Zombie’ at UFC 273
UFC featherweight champion Volkanovski is scheduled to defend his title against Chan Sung Jung at UFC 273 on April 9th. However, the City Kickboxing (CKB) gym fighter wasn’t originally booked to fight Jung.
Volkanovski was expected to defend his belt in a trilogy fight against Max Holloway at UFC 272 on March 5th. However, Holloway withdrew from the matchup due to injury issues. Resultantly, the UFC roped in Jung as a replacement and booked the Volkanovski-Jung matchup to take place at UFC 273 instead.
The CKB gym in New Zealand is home to several notable fighters including UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, UFC featherweight kingpin Volkanovski, UFC featherweight Dan Hooker, and more. During the UFC London media day last month Hooker predicted a knockout victory for his teammate Volkanovski over Jung. ‘The Hangman’ said:
"Korean Zombie gets hit too much, (Volkanovski hits) too hard. You put two and two together, Korean Zombie's getting knocked out."
Volkanovski boasts a professional MMA record of 23 wins and 1 loss. His lone MMA loss came early in his career at welterweight, when he was beaten via third-round TKO by Corey Nelson at Australian FC 5 in May 2013.
