SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA – Volk in action at UFC 325
Alexander Volkanovski has a return window. The UFC featherweight champion told MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn this week that he expects to fight again between August and September, with UFC 331 as the working target. The opponent he wants? Movsar Evloev.
That name shouldn’t surprise anyone tracking the division. Evloev is 20-0 as a professional and 10-0 inside the UFC, a streak that has made the contender debate fairly short. Volkanovski said as much himself: “Movsar is the most deserving No. 1 contender. He’s been No. 1 contender for a while, and everyone knows me as champion. I want to fight the No. 1 guy. I want to fight the guy who deserves it, and it is Movsar.”
The timing has been the sticking point. Volkanovski indicated the UFC’s stacked back half of the calendar, UFC Freedom 250 on June 14, UFC 329 with Conor McGregor on July 11, has pushed any formal announcement down the queue. “Obviously I want something announced, not even announced, I want it locked in, as well,” he said. “But you’ve got to understand they have a schedule they need to keep with a lot of champions, a lot of other people fighting, a lot of bigger events… Maybe once they get this out of the way they can start putting energy everywhere else.”
He named the window himself: “I was obviously looking for anywhere from August to September. September is being brought up a lot with everyone. There are dates that look good. Whatever works, we’ll see.”
For context: Volkanovski reclaimed the vacant featherweight title against Diego Lopes at UFC 314 in April 2025, then successfully defended it in the rematch at UFC 325 in Sydney in January. He re-signed with the promotion shortly after the second Lopes fight, has made clear he isn’t planning to retire, and is 37 years old — a professional mixed martial artist since 2012.
Evloev’s case is built on volume and control rather than highlight finishes. Of his ten UFC wins, the Russian contender has gone the distance in the majority, leaning on grappling pressure and pace. The most recent of those, against Lerone Murphy at UFC London in March, was the closer ( a majority decision (48-46, 48-46, 47-47)) in a closely contested five-round fight that saw Evloev lose a point in the fourth for repeated low blows. He has been campaigning publicly for a title shot since, including a cryptic May 27 X post that signaled the booking was imminent: “I am back, end of the summer, and new Inshallah.”
Having covered featherweight title pictures for the better part of a decade, the bottleneck here is familiar. Undefeated contenders without a finishing reel often wait longer than their records suggest they should, particularly when the champion is recovering from a layoff and the promotion is juggling pay-per-view real estate. Evloev has been vocal about that wait. A booking, if it materialises, would resolve a queue that’s been forming since late 2024.
UFC 331 does not yet have a confirmed date or location on the public schedule, and neither the promotion nor Evloev’s camp has formally announced terms. Volkanovski’s comments are, for now, the champion’s framing of where things sit.
What is on the record: the champion wants the fight, has named the opponent, and has given a window. The rest is paperwork and a venue.
Volkanovski’s last outing against Lopes was a clear points win, with the Australian out-landing his opponent across five rounds and avoiding the kind of damage that defined his title loss to Ilia Topuria at UFC 298 in early 2024 — the only previous fight in this stretch where Volkanovski lost the belt and the only Topuria fight on his record. Topuria has since vacated the featherweight title and moved up to defend lightweight gold at the White House on Saturday. Whether the Lopes rematch performance buys Volkanovski a smoother camp into his next fight remains to be seen, but the fighter himself sounded unbothered about the layoff.
Evloev, for his part, has spent the past several months campaigning publicly for a title shot across interviews and social media. If Volkanovski’s timeline holds, he won’t have to campaign much longer.
