Chael Sonnen sees UFC 314 as a do-or-die scenario for Alexander Volkanovski.
Volkanovski (26-4 MMA, 13-3 UFC) meets Diego Lopes (26-6 MMA, 5-1 UFC) for the vacant featherweight title in Saturday’s most important occasion at Kaseya Heart from Miami (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPN/Disney+, ESPN+). Whereas Volkanovski has a possibility to reclaim the UFC featherweight title, a loss may be detrimental to his profession.
“Volkanovski’s identify popping up with the correct of loss, and I’m speaking about if he will get laid out or he will get stopped, which is Lopes’ best path to victory by the way in which, individuals are going to be calling for retirement,” Sonnen stated on “Good Man/Unhealthy Man” with Daniel Cormier. “That’s going to offer him 4 losses out of his final 5. It’s going to be over quite a lot of years, spreading over a few totally different weight courses.
“I don’t take a pleasure in that, however after I’m making an attempt to take a look at it and analyze it, and take into consideration who’s acquired the stress, and stress issues. Guys such as you and I speak about stress on a regular basis, however we neglect to clarify it. The explanation why that issues is stress creates fatigue, and in a sport that’s constructed round exhaustion, you don’t need to be the one to get drained first. I feel that Volk will not be solely combating for a world title, I feel he’s combating for his profession.”
Volkanovski will look to rebound after back-to-back knockout losses to UFC light-weight champion Islam Makhachev and Ilia Topuria. After shedding his featherweight title to Topuria, who later vacated the belt, Volkanovski opted to take greater than a 12 months off to get better.
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