It’s said that the more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war. If you are preparing to fight seven-foot tall Stefan Struve, the best man on Earth to sweat with might be four-time K-1 GP winner and former King of Pancrase Semmy Schilt, who stands at 6′ 11″. 6′ 7″ Alexander Volkov is used to striking down, but had to learn to reverse that at UFC Fight Night 115. At the post-fight press conference, explained that training with Hightower was invaluable.
We just spoke about Sammy, said a chuckling Volkov said through a translator, as transcribed by Tristen Critchfield. It was much harder to fight him than Stefan.
Semmy helped me a great deal. My manager told me I would be fighting Struve, my first thought was to get Semmy to participate in our camp….When he came I was very grateful to him, and his help was priceless.
He performed quite well. When I caught him I knew I could finish. I didn’t want to take risks. He was ready to throw back when he was covering up. I methodically destroyed him instead of putting all my effort into one strike.
Volkov suffered a flying knee that opened a five-stitch cut, and multiple eye pokes.
I was more afraid of doctors stopping the fight because my vision became blurry, said Volkov. “It’s hard to say how it influenced the fight. I had a feeling I could finish it in the first and the second, but frankly I’m happy to say I finished in the third….I fought a good hard fight, and I’m happy with it.
Right now I am thinking not about whom to fight, but I would like to think about where to fight. Five Russian fighters won [tonight] and it would be great if UFC would come to Russia. I would be happy to headline this.
I think a UFC event could [fill] the biggest stadium in Russia. For me personally it’s better to fight in Russia and to show the UFC how many fans in Russia love the UFC. If you saw today there were a lot of Russian fans in the crowd, and they were chanting louder than other people. Our fans they are smart, fun and crazy and they will show the world they love mixed martial arts.
