Alexander Volkov believes Alex Pereira might be walking into a trap with his heavyweight debut.
Volkov is a top heavyweight contender and he is intrigued by the UFC Freedom 250 matchup between Pereira and Ciryl Gane. “Poatan” is moving up in weight, relinquishing the light heavyweight gold in the process. He’ll be competing against Gane with the interim heavyweight title at stake on June 14.
During an interview with MMAFighting, Volkov admitted that he feels Pereira would be an easier fight for him than a rematch with Gane if main heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall isn’t ready to return in a timely manner. He thinks that Pereira will realize that heavyweight is a different animal.
“For me, how I see this, I don’t want to disrespect anybody,” Volkov said. “Fighting with Alex Pereira will be more easy for me, but more big fight if he won. … I don’t know [how he will perform at heavyweight]. If his body is not genetic unique, it should be hard for him. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but we see his pictures.
“He has a lot of water in his body. It always makes cardio much worse, and punches and everything. And heavyweight is more heavy so you will spend much more energy than you spend in either light heavyweight or middleweight. It’s little bit different feeling. I truly believe that heavyweight and any other division is like two different types of sports. We need different abilities to fight in heavyweights in the lower division.”
Volkov has a bout scheduled for Saturday’s UFC 328 event in Newark. He will be taking on Waldo Cortes-Acosta, who is riding a three-fight winning streak. Volkov would stay in the title mix if he can halt the momentum of another surging heavyweight.
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