Las Vegas, NV – It’s back to work for UFC heavyweight Alexander Volkov as he is one half of the main event at UFC Vegas 56 on Saturday night at the UFC APEX. He faces Jairzinho Rozenstruik as the headlining bout.
“I’m excited because it’s the main event. Another great opportunity to show myself for the world. Everything good, I like it,” Volkov told reporters on Wednesday.
Volkov (34-10) is coming off a submission loss at UFC London in March which happened as the war in Ukraine was ramping up. Volkov, a Russian native, felt the pressure of the situation being in the spotlight of a big UFC card.
“I don’t want to make any excuse for sure. My opponent was good. (Tom) Aspinall is a good fighter. He’ll have big future we’ll see how he’ll go. I thought he’s good. He just was better than me. I had a good shape for this fight everything was good. There was some mental maybe problem with all the things happening in the world. The thing that happened in our sport and I have to be ready for this,” Volkov said.
“I wasn’t. So that’s why.”
With the quick turnaround Volkov gets a chance to get some momentum back towards getting back to the top of the division.
“For sure it’s important to me to win this fight. More important for me is to be busy by UFC doing my job. I really appreciate it to UFC that they give me this opportunity to be on the card, to be in the main event, to fight all over the world. I like to be here. It’s my job,” Volkov chuckled.
Standing across from Volkov will be Rozenstruik (12-3) who himself is coming off a loss last September.
“My opponent he’s pretty dangerous. He have, as you say, a lot of power in his hands. He is good stand up fighter. But I have many of the same guys who have a lot of power in his hands and good stand up. I believe I’m good in stand up too so I will try to show my best in this fight, and believe my technical skills are much better than him,” Volkov said.
“Maybe I don’t have some kind of power in my punch, but for sure I’m more technical and for sure I have a lot of power in my kicks. I’m much better wrestling and grappling than him. We’ll see how it goes.”
Watch the full media day scrum with Alexander Volkov above. Volkov faces Jairzinho Rozenstruik in the main event of UFC Vegas 56 on June 4th at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, NV.
