Alexander Volkanovski Wants Next Title Defense In Australia Or New Zealand: “Let’s Make A Game Plan”

Brian Ortega is expected to be the next person to challenge UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and Volkanovski would like that encounter to happen in Australia or New Zealand.

The featherweight champion cites the fact that both countries are holding events in front of massive crowds as the reason the fight should happen at one of those locations.

“Australia, New Zealand, we’re holding crowds over here,” Volkanovski said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (via Farah Hannoun of MMA Junkie). “We had the Wallabies and All Blacks in New Zealand with 30,000 people. We’re gonna have 40,000 this weekend. Bring it over here. We could do it. Let’s make a game plan. Obviously we got the fighters here to make it a cracker card, and you can bring people here, make game plans so the quarantine’s gonna work and whatnot. Let’s do it.”

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the UFC has held the majority of its events at the UFC Apex or at Fight Island.

Ortega earned his title shot by beating Chan Sung Jung at UFC Fight Island 6 and Volkanovski was impressed by what he saw in that fight.

“He was a completely different fighter,” Volkanovski said. “If he went out there and just slugged it out and didn’t show improvements, it would be hard to be like he is ready for another shot. But to go out there and completely change your game, Ortega 2.0, it makes sense. To go out there and take ‘Zombie’ out like he did, it was pretty impressive. He didn’t just go out there and land a lucky punch or a lucky submission. He went out there and dominated and beat him from start to finish, and that’s impressive.”

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