Plenty of people in the MMA community were left scratching their heads when Alexander Volkanovski's next defense of the featherweight title was revealed to be a rematch with Diego Lopes at UFC 325.
Having been less than a year since their first title clash, speculation started about why the fight was booked. Within that speculation came rumors that the fight would serve as Volkanovski's retirement bout, win or lose -- and debates on if it was time or not for Volkanovski to hang up the gloves.
Now, in an appearance on the January 12 edition of The Ariel Helwani Show, Volkanovski publicly addressed the rumors of retirement for the first time.
And he claimed that he has no idea where they came from.
"I guess people are just going off of what I say," Volkanovski said. "Like, I'm like, 'How many more do I have?' You know, if I was to get beaten up, am I going to come back and fight? No, but that's not my plans.
"Unless things go horribly wrong, I'm planning on going back out there."
Alexander Volkanovski Claims No Plans For Retirement After UFC 325
This year marks Volkanovski's 10th anniversary in the Octagon. Making his professional MMA debut in May 2012, Volkanovski arrived to the UFC as a 13-1 fighter in November 2016.
He won his first seven Octagon fights, including wins over Jose Aldo, Chad Mendes, and Darren Elkins, before defeating Max Holloway for the UFC featherweight title at UFC 245. He made four consecutive title defenses, defeating Holloway (twice), Brian Ortega, and "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung-Jung.
In 2023 and 2024, things seemed to hit a low point for Volkanovski. Outside of a successful title defense against Yair Rodriguez, he unsuccessfully challenged then-lightweight champion Islam Makhachev twice before dropping the featherweight title to Ilia Topuria at UFC 298. At UFC 314, however, he regained the then-vacant championship by defeating Lopes.
Volkanovski admitted, however, that it wasn't long after that fight that he had an honest conversation about his future.
"There was a talk straight after my last fight." Volkanovski said. "I'm like, 'How many more?' You never know. There were talks like that, but as soon I started training, I was like 'Ah, let's keep going.'"
Volkanovski took a clear unanimous decision over Lopes in their first meeting, but Lopes rebounded with a finish of Jean Silva in the main event of Noche UFC 3 in September.
Nevertheless, Volkanovski aims for a similar (or better) result this go-around.
"Right now, I plan on everything going well, getting my hand raised, hopefully taking minimal damage so I can have a good turnaround," Volkanovski said. "So the plan isn't definitely to retire."