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#3 UFC Heavyweight division: Alexander Volkov vs. Walt Harris

Alexander Volkov has his sights set on the UFC Heavyweight title.

Erase the previous UFC fight from both of these men, and this could well be a top contender’s match. Before facing Alistair Overeem in May, Harris had reeled off four wins in a row in the UFC, defeating the tough Aleksei Oleinik by KO in his most impressive showing to date.

However, tragedy then struck. Harris’ stepdaughter was kidnapped and murdered, naturally causing him to miss months of action. And when he returned to fight Overeem, he seemed far too emotional and failed to capitalize on an early knockdown, eventually losing by TKO.

Overall, The Big Ticket is an interesting fighter. He’s 7-7 in the UFC overall but has steadily improved over the years to the point where he’s highly dangerous. At 6’5” and 250lbs, he’s one of the bigger men on the UFC’s roster, but he’s also surprisingly quick for a man of his size and holds crushing power in his hands.

Where Harris has tended to struggle has been against ground fighters. He was easily submitted by Fabricio Werdum, for instance, and also struggled badly once Overeem planted him on his back. It’s probably worth questioning how well he’d do against a very technical striker as well, purely because we’ve never seen him really face one outside of Overeem – who did knock him down leading to the finish.

Harris’ gameplan here will probably be an attempt to replicate Derrick Lewis’ knockout of Volkov from UFC 229. Obviously, that fight saw Lewis take a tremendous amount of punishment before landing his big shot, which Harris won’t want to copy. However, the way that The Black Beast looped a right hand over the top to put Volkov away should definitely be something he looks for.

Essentially though, that’ll be tricky. Volkov has lost two of his last three fights, but outside of that, he’s been perfect in the UFC, going 5-2 overall. His wins over Fabricio Werdum and Stefan Struve showed him to be an excellent finisher, but it’s his fight with Greg Hardy that should be most telling here.

In that fight, Drago dealt with a superb, giant athlete by simply keeping him on the end of his jabs and leg kicks for three rounds. It wasn’t entertaining, but Hardy never came close to hurting him at any stage. Harris is probably a more polished fighter than Hardy right now, but there are definitely some parallels between the two. They’re both explosive athletes with KO power, but neither has a lot of finesse to their game.

To add to this, Volkov also has a massive advantage on the ground. Curtis Blaydes did expose Volkov’s wrestling somewhat, but Harris isn’t likely to shoot for takedowns anyway. And if Drago can put Harris on his back, then there’s every chance he keeps him down and does some damage.

Overall, Harris can win this fight if he can land a big shot. He’s got KO power, he can finish, and Volkov’s chin isn’t the best. However, Drago simply has more ways to win, has a reach advantage, and is the more technically skilled fighter. It might not be entertaining, but I’m backing the Russian to pick up his sixth UFC win.

The Pick: Volkov via unanimous decision