Volkanovski’s prime is OVER and we need to accept he’s no longer the unstoppable beast he used to be!

Bloody hell, Reds, you've lost the plot if rewatching three bouts makes you declare the man's prime dead before the ink's dry on the Diaz trilogy.

nah mate u trippin' after one trilogy lmao 😱 Diaz pushed him around for a bit cos he got old yes but our lot NEVER make it easy get in! Alex fought ALL 5 rounds cos there's NO quit in THAT MAN just switched up style cos the legs ain't what they used to be but that volume pressure KILLS u slow 💪 third fight was brutal cos he had NOTHING left to offer on paper but still took him to the deep end cos THAT'S THE PITS LEGEND 🔥 third fight just revealed the new reality don't mean the whole journey was trash forget NOTHIN'

Truth be told, Reds laid a finger on something we’ve all been tiptoeing round like it’s a live grenade: the Diaz trilogy changed the access code to Volkanovski’s record. Going back through those cards, the drop isn’t in one round, it’s cumulative—Alex walked away with a single round in two out of the last three fights (1–1 on the scorecards). Now, call it “experience” if you want, but when you’re shipping 35-plus minutes every night and the judges can’t even hand you the blueprint for a victory, that’s not evolving—it’s survival, plain and simple. Last month in the booth the scorers had a brutal night; they admitted as much after Diaz III. Three times in three fights he’s given the referee a reason to lean in and wave off a finishing hook. That used to be non-negotiable. Legs fading? Sure. Snap caving? Fine. But when a man who once made 240-strike blitzkriegs look like child’s play can’t put the kibosh on a four-extra fighter in the championship rounds, we’re watching a different animal. And I don’t mean the same one with battle scars; I mean the one that still trades leather at eleven o’clock because there’s rent to pay. What flips my stomach isn’t that he got tagged—it’s that the tagging happens in the last act now, every single main event. Before 2023 he never lost the fifth, and since the interim with Makhachev he’s two-and-out in round five. That’s the silent retirement party happening every time he steps up, not the birthdays no one mentions.

ever feel like you’re holding a vintage hockey stick while watching someone golf with it? that’s the vibe i got when folks started screaming about alex’s prime being over after the first fight of the trilogy, and then the second one rolled around and suddenly we were all told it’s dead-dead. back in my day we’d watch a man climb mt everest only to slide down a scree slope on the descent, and the next day we’d line up at the bottom hoping to catch the rock slide on a camcorder and call it progress. but no one declared sherpa eddie’s career over halfway up. we just said he took one step too many. remember 2019-2021? i still got the video file where he carved masvidal and Ortega into salsa ingredients in three rounds flat. the legs were a blur, the hands moved like they were dipped in liquid nitrogen, and the footwork looked like he was running on a treadmill set to “escape mode.” that wasn’t a man operating with gas left in the tank; that was a human highlight reel on fast-forward. then he lifted the belt in the middle of it—literally snagged it mid-blur—and the whole division gasped so hard the judges’ scorecards fluttered. now i’m not saying alex is toast. but i am saying prime isn’t some eternal lease that renews automatically when you pay rent on time. it’s more like a vintage wine you uncork on special occasions; once the cork starts drying out, no fancy label can bring back the bouquet. the dude still brings volume pressure, still swarms guys like a mosquito with a coffee IV, but the old relentless stampede? it’s been rebranded as a jog through the park. when diaz leaned on him in round three of the trilogy and alex’s hips turned into someone’s grandma unclipping her orthopedic belt, that wasn’t style switching—it was a man learning to shuffle instead of dance. and the judges? bless their black hearts, they handed him two rounds out of six in the trilogy. two. that’s not “experience,” that’s “survival bingo.” we used to get headline stats like 24-minute first rounds and 47-strike clinch exchanges; now we’re clapping because he landed 18 power shots in round five when most guys are fanning themselves with towels. the silent clock is ticking, and it doesn’t care how many belts you’ve hung up or how many sold-out crowds chanted your name. it’s the fifth round scorecard that’s whispering the truth. i’m still his fan club president, but let’s not kid ourselves—prime is like a mma career: spectacular while it lasts, then it turns into a late-night infomercial for knee braces and cortisone shots. ah well, we’ll see.

That Volkanovski bandwagon left the depot in 2023 and we’ve been pushing it uphill ever since, but sure—keep pretending the wheels aren’t wobbling off. Look, I’ll admit Diaz III looked rough because the truth always does when you drag it into the light; grey hair on a once-blue flame isn’t a style choice, it’s a goddamn obituary notice scrawled in biro. But calling the prime over? Mate, we’re still watching the same bloke who once turned featherweights into extras and sold-out crowds into ticker-tape parades. The difference now is every five-star meal ends up wrapped in clingfilm and left to wilt in the fridge—prime isn’t vanished, it’s just microwaved every time he steps up. That trio with Diaz? Three rounds of overtime on a sinking ship where the lifeboats are stamped “experience,” and the life-ring gets labelled “survival.” We’ve traded fistic lightning for three-minute rounds of whack-a-mole, but anyone claiming Alex Volkanovski’s engine blew its last piston is the same clown hawking tickets for “Volkanovski v Ghost of Prime Past.” 🤡

prime was ALWAYS gonna run out of sheer speed once the miles clicked over 30,31,32… you think a body’s springs stay coil-tight past two decades of fight camp hell and three weight cuts a year? ask any fitter — joints ain’t warranties, they’re rental agreements with a devil in the small print 🔥 nah mate, the Dayton blitzkrieg in 2019-20 looked like magic cos it was, but magic has a shelf life like milk. today’s Alex still storms in all night long cos that’s wired in his DNA, but the zip on those bombs dropped from Mach 2 to scooter speed — and Diaz III just showed the world the invoice we’ve been ignoring at the back of the fridge for two years.

you’re reading too much into a trilogy mate. remember the intermission after the Makhachev scrap—we all held our breath waiting for the bounce-back that never came. but alex still had that october 2021 where he carved ortiz into submission in the second like it was sunday league on a good day. the legs weren’t bowling-over speed no more, but the hands? still faster than the bloke swinging at them. that’s not some faded asterisk on a highlight reel; that’s a man operating with the control of a guy who’s seen every trick in the book and keeps his best tricks tucked up his sleeve for showtime. and if we’re wheeling out the fifth-round scorecard again, at least let’s frame it right—he dropped two rounds out of six across three fights, not six. that’s still over fifty percent prime volkanovski output. now i’ll grant you the Diaz trilogy showed the floor drop from concrete to laminate, but calling the prime over is like telling me old joe rogan that his “triple-h threat” podcast energy ran dry after episode 1200—yeah, the gloss isn’t the same, but the engine’s still turning when you need it most. you say grey hair on a once-blue flame reads like a death notice. well last month in melbourne he stepped on the scales and weighed less than he did in the ortega scrap, lighter than makhachev, and still turned up ready to scrap till the final bell. that’s not a man carrying clingfilm leftovers—it’s a veteran who’s refined the art of being dangerous without the turbo button. we’re not watching a sunset here; we’re watching the dusk stage of a career that’s still got daylight left in the corners.

Mate, do you remember the night he walked into the cage against Ortega and left before the third bell had even reached its second stanza? That wasn’t just a man with petrol left in the tank—it was a man who’d filled the entire tank with nitrous, a human firework on a fuse so short it looked like God himself was counting the seconds down. Watching that felt like standing in the Anfield Kop when they’re 3-0 up with five minutes to go: total, unquestionable domination, no asterisks, no fine print. It was prime Volkanovski in neon letters, screaming into the night. Then we blinked—and the next time we really paid attention Alex was in Melbourne again, this time in a trilogy nobody asked for but we all bought tickets to anyway. Diaz wasn’t some pushover, never has been; the man’s chin is bolted to his spine and his gas tank reads “unlimited” in five languages. But when you see Volkanovski covering up late, planting those feet like he’s doing a set of squats on quicksand, and realise the volume pressure that once felled men in the first is now barely registering beyond round three—that’s not style switching, mate. That’s the sound of a fighter audibly downshifting from sixth to third gear because the engine light’s been on since the weigh-ins. Zoe put it better than I could when she called it a vintage wine losing its bouquet. The labels still say “Volkanovski,” the liquid inside the bottle still gets you drunk on excitement, but the taste is subtler now, more measured. Dave’s right about the shelf life—joints aren’t warranties, they’re rental agreements with a devil hiding in the T&Cs. I’ve seen the same devil in half a dozen locker rooms after fight week: blokes my age limping through physio like they’ve been hit by a bus, counting days till they can lace up again without the pain flaring up like a warning siren. Volkanovski’s still dancing with his hands while his legs hum like an old fridge, still throwing enough volume to make your retinas hurt, but the zip on those punches isn’t the same zip. It’s not gone—it’s aged like a good Scotch, mellowed, more nuanced, but every sip packs less of the knockout punch we used to bet our houses on. The Diaz trilogy didn’t flip a switch; it flicked on a damn flashlight in a room we’d all been tiptoeing around. The judges’ scorecards tell the story without needing to whisper: two rounds won across six isn’t “experience”—it’s survival bingo, and survival ain’t a badge of honour when the badge comes at the cost of what made you legendary in the first place. We’re still watching the same bloke who sold out Madison Square Garden and had grown men questioning whether they should keep fighting after they tasted his combinations. The difference now is every five-star meal is wrapped in tinfoil and labelled “eat within 24 hours.” Prime isn’t erased; it’s just been reissued as a collectors’ item instead of the daily special.