Media Volk Interview : "I Wanna See How Easily He Breaks When Things Don't Go To Plan”

[chimpoehurricane]

Truth be told, amongst the current top contenders at LW, Volk might be the toughest fight for Islam just based on his skill alone.

We'll see how he's able to deal with the grappling, but on the feet he's ahead of Poirier, Justin, Chandler and Charles, so I'm hoping for a good fight.

He can close distance and he's touch. He can't Crack an egg at fw. Lw is going to be bad.

 

[HP_Nut]

Islam is still likely to win but I see Volk as the hardest fight currently, I don't think any of the other current LW contenders will give him as tough a fight as Volk

 

[User9992]

Volk has great distance management, great takedown defense, great get ups, great cardio, and way better striking than Islam.

He is a very tough matchup on paper if size was close to equal.

He never fought any great wrestlers before. He beat strikers like Holloway & out of prime Aldo.

Islam gonna sub him easily.

 

[gift]

I'm hearing a lot of 'so what if wants to wrestle, i wrestle all the time with bigger guys' and this seems to be another underestimation of what it's like to tangle with Khabib/Islam. For their weight division, they are not normal in terms of physicality. For a guy moving up a weight division, I only expect this to be more of shock to the opponent. He says Islam will be surprised. I think Volk will be the one realizing something he doesn't now know.

Islam trains with a heavyweight version of Khabib now. Volk thinks he's wrestling bigger and better guys?

 

[Goutfather]

volk = smaller man, great striker with good wrestling, physically strong, known commodity, perennially underrated, beat everyone on the way up, proven heart and chin

islam = larger man, great wrestler and decent striker, hasn’t faced many challenges on his way up, relatively unknown commodity, questionable chin

the main problem i have with betting on islam is that he hasn’t faced the sort of fighters that would give him problems (except perhaps, arguably, charles). like khabib before him, his best wins are either over people who don’t represent much of a threat overall, or aren’t equipped to handle this level of mma wrestling. he has looked good in those fights, but they went pretty much how you would expect them to go. volk by contrast has answered many questions about how he faces adversity, and the styles that give him trouble. what we know is that he always rises to the occasion, and he prepares quite well. we’ve seen volk in trouble, but work his way out. we’ve seen him change things up on the fly. idk if islam is capable of that because until now (except for his loss) his fights pretty much go as planned. in the future, maybe people will start more seriously preparing to deal with dagestani wrestling and sambo. idk. but right now it does seem that most fighters are unprepared for it.

 

[vivi]

Well I’ll be cheering on Volk. I feel like I’m a bit more excited for this fight than when it was announced

 

[JustBleed69]

He never fought any great wrestlers before. He beat strikers like Holloway & out of prime Aldo.

Islam gonna sub him easily.

Chad Mendes & Darren Elkins are excellent wrestlers. Especially Chad, D1 runner up.

 

[dog y]

I really like his confidence. Should be a great scrap.

 

[MDoza]

Islam will have no answers for the baby leg kicks

 

[Cuttyrock]

Got Volk in this one he is going to make it look easy

 

[moosaev]

volk = smaller man, great striker with good wrestling, physically strong, known commodity, perennially underrated, beat everyone on the way up, proven heart and chin

islam = larger man, great wrestler and decent striker, hasn’t faced many challenges on his way up, relatively unknown commodity, questionable chin

the main problem i have with betting on islam is that he hasn’t faced the sort of fighters that would give him problems (except perhaps, arguably, charles). like khabib before him, his best wins are either over people who don’t represent much of a threat overall, or aren’t equipped to handle this level of mma wrestling. he has looked good in those fights, but they went pretty much how you would expect them to go. volk by contrast has answered many questions about how he faces adversity, and the styles that give him trouble. what we know is that he always rises to the occasion, and he prepares quite well. we’ve seen volk in trouble, but work his way out. we’ve seen him change things up on the fly. idk if islam is capable of that because until now (except for his loss) his fights pretty much go as planned. in the future, maybe people will start more seriously preparing to deal with dagestani wrestling and sambo. idk. but right now it does seem that most fighters are unprepared for it.

Exactly who has Volk faced? Max Holloway is a good fighter but he’s one dimensional and has shitty low IQ coaching. Brian Ortega is overrated and Korean Zombie was washed, I’m of the opinion that Volk’s resume is getting way overrated around here. People are acting like he’s gone through a murderers row, he really hasn’t.

 

[LetThemBleed]

Exactly who has Volk faced? Max Holloway is a good fighter but he’s one dimensional and has shitty low IQ coaching. Brian Ortega is overrated and Korean Zombie was washed, I’m of the opinion that Volk’s resume is getting way overrated around here. People are acting like he’s gone through a murderers row, he really hasn’t.

Volk has beaten every UFC FW champion outside of McGregor, including the GOAT Aldo and at absolute worst top 5 FW of all time in Max, 3 times, a guy who was rightfully on the P4P lists. If your saying Volk's FW resume is overrated how's Islam's LW resume? Doesn't even come close to comparing.

 

[Goutfather]

Exactly who has Volk faced?

he, more than any active champ, has the best claim to have faced the murderer’s row. i read your explanation for why you think all his opponents are “washed,” and frankly you have no clue what you’re talking about. peace.

 

[Individualthoughtpatterns]

Was going to mention the transition between rugby / shorter guy leverage and grappling bigger guys but that's a can of worms. NORMALLY I'd fully agree with the Islam' v a featherweight advantage but to me this is a fight of two specialists. While Islam is a freak grappler, Volks abilit to close gaps AND create space is mastery. I think that Dagestani constant pressure to chain wreslting gets negated here. Volk being explosive and compact (and knowing he's in for a grapple fest) with that footwork is going to be a different challenge than what Islam is used to. Plus, the constant forward pressure vs someone who angles off and closes space like Volk does may leave Islam open for some big shots.

I'm obviously going to favor Islam but Volk to me is a very live dog here.

After saying all that you say Islam is still your pick. So without contradicting what you've said, how does Islam do it?

 

[moosaev]

Volk has beaten every UFC FW champion outside of McGregor, including the GOAT Aldo and at absolute worst top 5 FW of all time in Max, 3 times, a guy who was rightfully on the P4P lists. If your saying Volk's FW resume is overrated how's Islam's LW resume? Doesn't even come close to comparing.

He beat Aldo after Max already beat Aldo. Mma is a very young sport, every time a new champ arrives we’re talking about whether they’re a divisional GOAt if they defend once or twice. Volk is very good but lately people have been acting like he has a jon Jones or GSP type resume. He fought one guy 3 times, when you look at his resume it’s good but people act like it’s amazing. Islam doesn’t have a great resume either, but my point is in mma resumes tell you very little. There are guys far down the rankings that would beat top 5 guys with very good resumes. Comparing resumes is a huge reason why so many on here mistakenly thought Charles would beat islam when it was pretty clear from the style matchup that islam was gonna win.

 

[Prex32]

I think Volk has more to lose than to gain from doing this.

maybe he would retire anyway soon so this would be one of his last big paydays
at least he tried and most people dont expect him to win anyway

 

[spinitch]

Volk could do well on the feet, evade Islam for a while but for 5 rounds will be tough to keep Islam off him. AV can probably survive on bottom for a minute or two so he needs to evade early part of rounds. This will be fun. Islam also hits harder than anyone at FW that Volk faced. Imagine Volk will frustrate Islam but Islam eventually gets Volk and retains title. Volk probably could beat Charles.

 

[fortheo]

Volk could do well on the feet, evade Islam for a while but for 5 rounds will be tough to keep Islam off him. AV can probably survive on bottom for a minute or two so he needs to evade early part of rounds. This will be fun. Islam also hits harder than anyone at FW that Volk faced. Imagine Volk will frustrate Islam but Islam eventually gets Volk and retains title. Volk probably could beat Charles.

What makes you think islam hits harder than Mendes, Aldo, or KZ? Just Because he dropped a chinny oliveira?

 

[HHJ]

What makes you think islam hits harder than Mendes, Aldo, or KZ? Just Because he dropped a chinny oliveira?

Well,he is bigger than they are,and he knocked Tibau out with one punch. So we can say that he is not a weak puncher,and again he is a big LW and they are FW's

 

[HHJ]

Exactly who has Volk faced? Max Holloway is a good fighter but he’s one dimensional and has shitty low IQ coaching. Brian Ortega is overrated and Korean Zombie was washed, I’m of the opinion that Volk’s resume is getting way overrated around here. People are acting like he’s gone through a murderers row, he really hasn’t.

lolololololol

man the smear campaign on this website.

"I think this guys overrated,so let me tell you how he SUCKS and how all the former champs he beat are bullshit"

::volk cleans out div::

"WHO HAS HE FACED??!"