Las Vegas, NV – After 9 months away from the octagon UFC heavyweight Alexander Volkov returns at UFC Las Vegas on Saturday night against Alexander Romanov.
“I was ready to fight earlier, but it seems though that there was no calls out in my name. UFC didn’t have any people for me to fight so I’m going to fight whenever they have somebody for me to fight,” Volkov told reporters through a translator on Wednesday.
“Really i’d like to stay more active. I’d like to fight more often, but whenever they call me I’m ready to go.”
Volkov (35-10) didn’t mind the time away from fighting as it afforded him time to heal up and improve his game.
“Actually I feel good about (the time away). I had some time to rest and then I had more time to prepare and more time to train. I was able to train in things I didn’t have time to train before to sharpen my skills. I think I spent this time well,” Volkov said.
“I kept on working. I kept on making sure that this time that I spent away was spent with purpose. There’s something that I got out of it and I feel good about it, I feel ready, and happy to start fighting.”
More and more fighters are starting to acknowledge working on the mental side of their game, and the time away helped Volkov do just that.
“It was good for me to psychologically rest as well because for a few years before I was fighting quite often and I was fighting really big important names, important opponents, so it was good for me to psychologically kind of take a break from the fight game,” he said.
“But I miss it now and I’m ready, and I’m charged. I’m ready to go.”
At UFC Las Vegas he faces Alexander Romanov who, prior to dropping a decision to Marcin Tybura in Aug. 2020, was riding a 5-fight win streak in the UFC.
“I basically say yes to whatever UFC says whoever they want me to fight I fight. I was pretty much expecting him to win (against) Tybura, and then we were going to fight anyways after his win. It seems as though he wasn’t able to conquer that puzzle so the UFC obviously gave him some time to rest up and they still made that fight between me and him,” Volkov said. “I guess I kind of was expecting (the matchup). I just thought that it was going to come after a win, but it’s a good fight for me.”
Volkov has fought big names at heavyweight such as Alistair Overeem, Ciryl Gane, Derrick Lewis and Fabricio Werdum to name a few.
“The name is not as important. What’s important is that I’ll be able to show my skills. I’ll be able to practice my skills the skills that I worked on for so long coming into this fight. I’ll be able to look at my wrestling and see how it matches up with somebody who’s basically a wrestler,” said Volkov.
“I’m happy about this fight and we’ll see what happens.”
Watch the entire media day scrum with Alexander Volkov above. Volkov takes on Alexander Romanov at UFC Las Vegas in the co-main event on Saturday night.
