The coach of Alexander Volkanovski doesn’t believe Movsar Evloev would be able to deal with the newly crowned UFC featherweight champion’s strength.
Evloev has been staking his claim for the next title shot following Volkanovski’s return to the throne at this past weekend’s UFC 314 pay-per-view.
The Australian veteran got the better of Diego Lopes across five rounds to bounce back from consecutive knockout losses to Islam Makhachev and Ilia Topuria, beginning a second reign at 145 pounds in the process.
Attention has already turned to the first defense of his new divisional rule, and Evloev is widely being branded the most deserving of the opportunity.
During a recent appearance on Submission Radio, coach Joe Lopez assessed the Russian’s game and how it stacks up against the strengths of the champ.
“I think he is a good wrestler, but he’s not a – what would you call him? He’s good at getting people down, but he doesn’t really do much with it once he gets them down. And that’s what I guess makes him boring,” Lopez said. “So he just hangs on to them, and I don’t think he’s going to be able to hang onto Volk. Volk is just so strong, and his scrambling skills, and his jiu-jitsu and wrestling are another level. Volk just picks things up, if you look at the the beginning of the camp, when we break things down, and we see what each person’s really good at.
“So we’ve got Diego. Diego’s got a pretty good guard. The way he switches from armbars to triangles to sweeps, he’s very good at. He’s got a really good repertoire there, and at the beginning with the guys that we had, Volk was getting stuck in there. (But) by the end of the camp, Volk was not having any problems at all in those positions, and I think that’s what Diego felt when Alex took him down – that it’s not a place he wants to be with Alex on top of him because like I said, Alex’s pressure when he’s on top, he feels like a heavyweight on top of you, and then he just doesn’t hang onto you. He’s just looking to land some bombs or an elbow or something on you. So, you don’t want to be on the bottom when Alex is on top.”
