Alexander Volkanovski

UFC featherweight champion Alex Volkanovski is known to be willing to accept any challenge, and he had a unique proposition for a potential fight against Conor McGregor.

In response to a hypothetical fight between himself and the former two-division champion, Volkanovski suggested they compete at 155 pounds:

Volkanovski's post caught the attention of McGregor, who became the first person in UFC history to hold titles simultaneously in two weight classes when he won the lightweight championship in 2016 while also holding the featherweight belt. The 34-year-old questioned whether the current 145-pound champ was afraid before firing off some of his usual barbs:

Volkanovski refused to back down in his response:

Volkanovski is coming off a close unanimous-decision loss to current lightweight champion Islam Makhachev in February. Despite facing a significant size disadvantage, Volkanovski surprised many with how competitive the matchup turned out to be.

McGregor, who hasn't fought since suffering an ankle injury in a loss to Dustin Poirier in 2021, is 1-3 since he became double champ in 2016. He's expected to make his long-awaited return to the Octagon later this year against Michael Chandler, who he coached against in the upcoming 31st season of The Ultimate Fighter reality competition series.

Alex Volkanovski and Yair Rodriguez are reportedly set to clash in a featherweight title unification bout at UFC 290.

According to Ariel Helwani of The MMA Hour, the fight is not yet official, but "everyone is on board," and it is tentatively scheduled to take place on July 8.

Volkanovski is the reigning UFC featherweight champion, while Rodriguez won the interim featherweight title in February.

Volkanovski, who is a 34-year-old from Australia, first won the UFC featherweight title at UFC 245 in December 2019 when he beat Max Holloway by a unanimous decision.

He has had four successful title defenses since then, including two more wins over Holloway and victories against Brian Ortega and Jung Chan-sung.

In February, Volkanovski attempted to become a double champion when he challenged Islam Makhachev for the UFC lightweight title, but Makhachev won by unanimous decision at UFC 284.

At that same event, Rodriguez faced Josh Emmett to determine an interim featherweight champion while Volkanovski went for the lightweight title.

Rodriguez won by second-round submission with a triangle choke, setting the stage for a unification bout.

Volkanovski is a more experienced fighter with 27 professional bouts to his credit, plus he has enjoyed more success as well, going an impressive 25-2. In between his first loss to Corey Nelson in 2013 and his second loss to Makhachev in February, Volkanovski won 22 consecutive fights.

Rodriguez, a 30-year-old veteran from Mexico, is 15-3 with one no contest in 19 career fights. Of his past five fights that have ended in a decision, Rodriguez is 4-1.

Like Volkanovski, Rodriguez has beaten Ortega and Chan-sung, plus he owns wins over Jeremy Stephens, Dan Hooker and BJ Penn.

UFC 290 is scheduled to take place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which is essentially UFC's home base.

Helwani noted that it isn't yet clear if Volkanovski vs. Rodriguez will be the main event of UFC 290.

Islam Makhachev secured his first title defense as lightweight champion against Alexander Volkanovski via unanimous decision in the main event of UFC 284 from RAC Arena in Perth, Australia.

Nothing about it was easy. Volkanovski put forth a valiant effort and made the champion work for it in a decision that the Australian crowd wasn't too happy about.

The question of what Volkanovski would look like as a lightweight was answered pretty quickly. The featherweight champion showed his power in the opening minutes of the fight backing up Makhachev with heavy punches.

But we also saw that his takedown defense wasn't enough to keep the fight standing the whole time. Makhachev was able to take advantage of Volkanovski's aggression and ended up taking The Great's back and looking for a rear-naked choke for the back half of the round.

Through two rounds, Volkanovski had more success than just about anyone against Makhachev:

Makhachev started to lean more heavily on his wrestling as the fight progressed. However, he didn't put in a ton of damage when he took down his opponent and Volkanovski continued to land meaningful strikes that made the rounds interesting.

He dropped Makhachev in the second half of the final round, finishing the fight in top position and going for the finish.

The win brings some stability to the lightweight division. Since Khabib Nurmagomedov retired in 2020, Charles Oliveira has won the belt, vacated it because he missed weight and ultimately lost his opportunity to reclaim it against Makhachev.

Now, the Dagestani fighter has the opportunity to establish himself as the true king of the division. It started with sending the king of the featherweight division back to 145 pounds.

Volkanovski was attempting to join the club of two-division champions in the UFC's history.

That's a goal that also happens to be on Makhachev's list. He's only notched one title defense, but his coach, Javier Mendez, recently laid out his future plans, and it isn't just limited to being the 155-pound champion.

"So he's going to train, he's going to clear out the division like he wants to do, and then he is going to go for the welterweight title, and whoever that person at that particular time is going to be, I feel he's going to beat," Mendez said in an appearance on Submission Radio (h/t Jesse Holland of MMA Mania).

So far, he's used his strength and wrestling to dominate lightweight opponents. After starting his UFC career 1-1, he has ripped off 12 straight wins. Before beating Volkanovski, he racked up five consecutive finishes.

With wins over Volkanovski and Charles Oliveira in his last two fights, it's hard to envision him not being the favorite against any lightweight looking to take his title.