Alexander Volkanovski isn't waiting for the paperwork to be signed before hitting the gym — the UFC featherweight champion is already drilling wrestling in Thailand with Movsar Evloev firmly in his sights.
The 145-pound titleholder is fresh off back-to-back decision victories over Diego Lopes, the second of which came at UFC 325 in February, completing the second defence of his current reign. With major numbered cards still on the UFC calendar for October, November, and December, matchmakers have multiple windows to slot in a championship headliner, and Volkanovski appears to know exactly who he'll be sharing the cage with.
> "It's not locked in, but it's pretty obvious it's probably going to be Movsar," Volkanovski said in a vlog. "So get all that wrestling in nice and early."
Evloev's Unblemished Record Earns the Shot
Evloev arrives at the No. 1 contender position carrying a flawless 20-0 professional record, yet his path to a title opportunity hasn't been entirely straightforward. Critics have pointed to the absence of stoppages — he has gone the distance with all ten of his UFC opponents — and a history of injuries as factors that have clouded his case. Still, the Russian grappling specialist's résumé carries genuine weight, featuring victories over Lerone Murphy, Aljamain Sterling, and Lopes, the very man who has been handed two separate championship opportunities.
Volkanovski Playing as if It's Already Official
Despite the bout remaining unconfirmed on paper, Volkanovski has made clear he is treating preparation as though fight night is already locked in. Back training in Thailand, the champion is ramping up his camp ahead of an anticipated announcement.
> "Always good to be back here," Volkanovski said. "Good to be back in Thailand. Focus. Get stuck into it. Train hard. Get ready to ramp things up. … Still nothing confirmed, but the dates I'm thinking, I need to start getting ready so we're playing as if it's game on. We should get confirmation soon though."
With Volkanovski having publicly referenced Evloev as his likely next opponent on several occasions, and preparation already underway, the formal announcement looks to be a matter of when rather than if. Fight fans should keep an eye on those remaining 2025 numbered events for the official booking.
Why the wrestling camp makes sense
Volkanovski is in Thailand drilling takedown defence for a fight that has not been announced. The archive explains the priority.
Across 79,959 archived bouts contested by fighters listed at featherweight:
| Featherweight bouts | Share |
|---|---|
| Ended by submission | 34.7% |
| Ended by KO or TKO | 32.1% |
| Went to the judges | 29.4% |
Featherweight is the only division in the archive where submissions outrank knockouts, and it sends more fights to the scorecards than any division above it — middleweight reaches the judges 22.6% of the time, light heavyweight 19.4%, heavyweight 17.2%.
Two consequences follow, and both are visible in how Volkanovski is preparing. First, the grappling exchange decides more featherweight fights than the striking exchange does. Second, when it does not end the fight outright it decides the scorecards, which is how a champion arrives at back-to-back decision wins over the same opponent.
Against a wrestler with Evloev's record, the archive's base rates point at exactly the phase of the fight Volkanovski has flown to Thailand to work on.
Method: figures drawn from the MMAHIT fight archive of 1,049,038 recorded bouts across 347,296 fighters, events dated December 1963 to May 2026. Each bout is stored once per corner and has been de-duplicated. Draws and no-contests are excluded from win-rate calculations. Division is taken from the weight class recorded on each fighter's profile rather than the contracted weight of the individual bout.
