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Alexander Volkanovski Talks Joe Rogan’s Rumored “Inside Information” Behind Ilia Topuria’s Refusal for Rematch

Published 05/02/2024, 7:27 AM EDT

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Alexander Volkanovski recently revealed that Joe Rogan had some inside information about his fight with Ilia Topuria. ‘The Great’ fought his last match with ‘El Matador’ and lost via a right hook in February in UFC 298. Topuria ended Volk’s 4-year reign over the 145-pound category. Following the encounter, there were rumors about Volkanovski’s wish for a re-match against ‘El Matador’. Joe Rogan fueled the speculations by giving the “inside information” on how Topuria refused to have a rematch with Volk in Perth in August this year.

The former champion finally addressed his side of the information in a recent interview while also giving his take on the supposed inside information of the UFC commentator. 

Alexander Volkanovski does not plan on fighting till later this year

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In an interaction on Fox Sports with Joshua Culibao and Niko Pajarillo, the former Featherweight champion was questioned whether the Topuria fight was even in the cards for Perth. Volkanovski denied the rumors and made it clear that he did not receive any information from UFC regarding the Perth bout as currently, he wants to take a break and maybe fight later in the year. 

Volk was clear on his stance and answered candidly, You know questions were asked about you know what was I gonna fight on the Perth card? A lot of media were saying they thought I went over there and I was the face of the event when I went over there and made the announcement. So I am guessing a lot of people thought I was gonna be on there. So he (Topuria) was even getting asked questions, so he did an interview. I reckon that’s where Joe Rogan got this. Whether he got inside information, I don’t know.”

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The 35-year-old fighter wishes to fight Topuria in Spain, but he is not sure if the champion would be waiting that long for his first title defense. Meanwhile, a re-match might be on the cards, as Topuria said in an interview with Webpositer, “I would first give Volkanovski the rematch. Before that, I would fight Brian Ortega, who was much closer to finishing Volkanovski in one fight than Max did in three.”

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In the same interaction, the 27-year-old refused to fight newly crowned BMF winner, Max Holloway for the first-time title defense. He made it clear that if the BMF belt of Holloway was not on the line, then he would not fight. Meanwhile, what was the inside information of Joe Rogan regarding UFC 305?

Joe Rogan claimed Topuria refused to fight with Volk

Joe Rogan claimed that ‘El Matador’ refused to fight Volk in August. He mentioned in his podcast about Volk’s performance and said, It’s heartless how quickly your life can turn around and you’re a guy like Volk from being ‘the man’ to being dismissed. Do you know? Cause like, Ilia didn’t want another rematch.

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Rogan also declared that since Topuria was the champ, he was calling the dibs. He also offhandedly mentioned that Topuria turned down the rematch with Volk in UFC 305 and ‘Blessed’ took a jibe at Topuria and said he, “didn’t wanna fight nobody in the top fu** 15 brother.”

Now it is left to see who Topuria chooses and whether he fights Holloway, Volk, or Ortega first.

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Written by:

Tanushree Bhowmick

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Tanushree Bhowmick is a Bodybuilding Writer at EssentiallySports. Her Master's degree in English literature is reflected in every carefully crafted sentence she writes. A lifelong fan of action movies, Tanushree has a keen interest in covering Arnold Schwarzenegger’s newsletters.
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Edited by:

Sakshi Jain