Alexander Volkanovski sees Lerone Murphy as his next title challenger after UFC 319.
UFC featherweight champion Volkanovski (27-5 MMA, 14-4 UFC) was zoning in on numerous opponents for his next title defense. At one point it appeared to be Yair Rodriguez, then the champion shifted his focus to the winner of the originally scheduled bout between Movsar Evloev and Aaron Pico at UFC on ABC 9 in July.
However, that fight was scrapped, and Pico’s promotional debut was pushed to this past Saturday’s UFC UFC 319 co-main event in Chicago, where he drew short-notice Murphy. Volkanovski had his eyes peeled on the matchup after Pico said he’s confident he could knock him out. Unfortunately for Pico, he ended up getting knocked out himself courtesy of a beautiful spinning back elbow by Murphy.
Volkanovski now welcomes Murphy (17-0-1 MMA, 9-0-1 UFC) next before the end of the year.
“Massive knockout, and you couldn’t script it any better,” Volkanovski said of Murphy on his YouTube channel. “For me, I’m waiting to see who it is. Who do I think deserves it? I think Lerone Murphy. Then people are going to say, ‘Oh, but there’s the decisions,’ as if he’s not exciting enough.
“That needs to be such a big factor nowadays and I understand that. I get it. Same for the UFC and for the fans. Now you get a guy who goes in and does an absolute massive knockout like that on a big card, on a seven-fight win streak or maybe more, I don’t know what it is. I mean, I think it’s a bit of a no-brainer. December’s looking good.”
Volkanovski is aware that many still view Evloev (19-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) as the No. 1 contender, but explains that he was initially willing to fight him.
“I tried,” Volkanovski said. “I’m going to tell you right now, I tried to make that happen. I thought he deserves it. He did deserve it. He had this fight and then I’m like, ‘All right, he’s going to have to do this (Pico) fight and he definitely gets it,’ pulled out and you know what the UFC’s like with things like that. … Maybe it was a serious injury. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be Movsar. I mean I tried with all of them.
“But now, it looks like it’s Lerone Murphy. It makes a lot of sense. So let’s do Lerone Murphy in December. Sounds great.”
