Alex Volkanovski built a incredibly precise prediction about how Max Holloway would occur out of their title clash at UFC 276 – and he didn’t even have to discuss a term.
The Aussie featherweight champ romped to a unanimous details decision in Las Vegas on Sunday, never ever dropping a round to his outdated foe in a dominant show in their trilogy bout.
Volkanovski and other stars on the card were being questioned to sketch their opponents prior to the function kicked off in a ‘putting the artwork in martial artist’ advertising for the UFC – and he hit the nail on the head with his drawing.
Volkanovski drew what he imagined Holloway’s head would search like soon after their UFC 276 bout in a promo aimed at ‘putting the art in martial artist’
The featherweight champ strike the nail on the head with his sketch
Lifestyle imitates art: Holloway endured a huge minimize more than his remaining eye, a bloodied mouth, a slice beneath his appropriate eye and a bloodied forehead – just as Volkanovski’s drawing predicted
The completed item showed Holloway with a sequence of stitches higher than his blackened still left eye, a reduce beneath his right eye, body fat lips and a different reduce on the right aspect of his forehead – and it was very near to the mark.
The American endured a single of the worst cuts observed in the octagon when Volkanovski smashed him above the left eye with an overhand suitable in the 2nd round. It was so critical he had to be taken care of in clinic following the fight.
But that was not the only similarity to the Aussie’s sketch – Holloway was also remaining with a lesser reduce below his appropriate eye, a bloodied mouth, and a wound on the ideal facet of his brow, just as predicted.
‘He’s bought a odd-shaped head, sorry,’ Volkanovski suggests in the video as he generates his artwork.
‘We’ll have a bit of a shiner, bit of bruising there, couple of very little nicks in this article … which is f***ing awful, isn’t really it?’ he laughs after turning in the finished merchandise.
Volkanovski rocked the Hawaiian in the course of their bout, even though he broke his left hand in the second spherical
The Aussie soldiered on and refused to favour his right hand as a final result of the damage, with his famously harming remaining jab landing virtually at will
Inflicting all that injury arrived at a expense, nonetheless, with the champ revealing immediately after the fight that he’d damaged his still left hand in the second round.
‘No plan how I did it, but I realized,’ he explained to the Day-to-day Telegraph.
‘I informed the corner and they just reported, ‘Hey, I will not want to listen to you say that again’ … so I claimed, ‘Ah, Okay, sorry’ and went back again to work.’
There was no indication that he’d endured the injuries, both, as he did not favour his suitable hand and stored landing his famed remaining jab all through the remainder of the bout.
The significant concern for Volkanovski is now that he’s proved he has no peer in the featherweight division, the place does he go from in this article?
He’s on the history as stating he wants to headline a UFC card held in Australia, and the great way for him to do that would be to get a crack at his ambition of keeping belts in two pounds divisions at the exact same time.
In April the NSW south coastline-based fighter verified he would like to shift up to light-weight and grow to be just the fifth double-champion in the heritage of the UFC.
Following the combat his father Tode (suitable, in white shirt) uncovered he almost got into a fight with two spectators who said his son was way too compact to beat Holloway
Charles Oliveira presently holds that title and the Aussie wants to get a crack at it without the need of having to work his way up by way of the division – some thing he can argue he has earned by stamping himself as 1 of the octagon’s most dominant champions.
Meanwhile, Volkanovski’s father Tode informed the publication he virtually obtained into a fight at Vegas’s T Mobile Arena before his son stepped into the octagon.
‘These two blokes approached me stating “Ah, Alexander Volkanovski, he’s a shrimp, too smaller, can’t get”,’ he discussed.
‘I just seemed at them and explained, “Boys, in situation you never know, the rating is two-nil”.
‘And that was it. They wished to combat me.’
