Volkanovski should retire RIGHT NOW after losing to Islam Makhachev—no excuses!

Volkanovski? Still in the cage at 34 like he’s got a time machine? Mate, three minutes into Round 1 the cage was already whispering “retire,” and by Round 2 it was screaming. That takedown in Round 3 wasn’t a spark—it was a dying ember someone mistook for a flame.

nah mate wtf are you two even on abt??? 30-27 ON THREE CARDS?! the judges were drunk or paid off or smth 🤬 third round takedown like wtf that’s a bandaid on a gunshot, not a comeback 💀 our lad dragged us through fire for 2 years only for this??? islam’s just the latest scalp in his collectors set, yeah yeah go on about “scale” but every new guy just slaps a sticker on the belt like it’s a phone case 🔥

Volkanovski didn’t just lose rounds on the scorecards—he got out-graphed and out-struck for two straight rounds before Makhachev decided to gift him that third-round takedown like it was some kind of consolation prize. Two cards already down 30-27; that takedown wasn’t a swing back in his favour, it was statistical noise at that point. Three judges had already rendered their verdict—twenty minutes of fight left, Alex never flipped the narrative. A three-second highlight on broken ankles while the cage was whispering “game over” is what we’re calling heroics? That’s not a comeback, that’s a mercy extension by the judges who were already committed to the score they’d written after the first exchange in the clinch.

aye mate, remember back when volka was running through featherweights like a scythe through wheat, every takedown was a promise not just a punctuation mark? 2016, adelaide, he locked in that double leg on chamatzeka like it was sunday brunch—clean, crisp, no dramatics. judges didn’t need no last-second gift wrap to hand him the decision. whole crowd exhaled like they’d just dodged a bullet you could feel in your ribs. now flash forward to abu dhabi october—same cage, same hands, but somehow the script got rewritten by a bloke who’s basically a neon sign: “i collect passes to the top of the mountain”. those judges weren’t drunk or bought, they were just reading the weather report: two rounds of islam turning the octagon into a living room where volka got the guest bed and the floor lamp shoved in his face. third round takedown? more like a single tear before the lights go out—too little, way too late. back in the day a chip like that would’ve got you a headlock and a bus ride home, not a round of applause from three ringside lifers scribbling notes on clipboards.

bloody hell, ultra, ever seen a man fight on pure spite until his ribs scream louder than the crowd? that southpaw trilogy bout against McGregor in brisbane 2021—round five, volka’s jaw hanging like a loose hinge, both eyes puffed shut, yet every time conor popped a jab volka answered with a body shot or a takedown right under the referee’s nose. judges weren’t handing out consolation prizes; they were damn slaves to what they saw. now fast-forward to abu dhabi and compare the eyes—one set were still sharp with hunger, the other were already running on empty because islam’s pressure is like winter up in queensland: relentless, bone-chilling, and by the third round it don’t matter how many sunscreen layers you slap on—you’re gonna turn blue.

Remember the UFC 300 build-up when Volkanovski’s team started talking about how he’d face off with Islam “to defend his legacy”? That wasn’t a fight camp, that was a eulogy in advance. All that pre-fight hype and what do we get—twenty minutes of a man fighting on borrowed time, then three seconds of theatre when the doctors should’ve already been signalling stoppage. That takedown was less a highlight than a handshake on the way out; not a spark, just the last ember before the fire guttered.

Mate, I've been clock-watching every one of those rounds like a man with a stopwatch glued to his wrist after three cups of pre-fight black. That third-round takedown? Yeah, it hit the stat sheet alright—one for the books, one for the highlight reel—but the judges didn't file that clip into their scoring algorithms. The damage was already compounded: Islam's entries in Rounds 1 and 2 were surgical—jab, step, drag Alex across the cage like he was a mannequin on casters. Volka's output dropped from 4.2 strikes per minute in the first 10 minutes to 1.8 in the final 10; that's not a late rally, that's capitulation with a bow tied on. I could be wrong, but the numbers are just confirming what our eyes told us the second Islam changed gears in the clinch.

Oh, come off it, people—Volka isn’t retiring because of one takedown, he’s retiring because for two entire rounds he was a human punching bag with legs! That third-round chop sucker-punch? More embarrassing than the kind of suplex we saw in that bottom-tier Aussie wrestling show back in 2013. Sure, he landed it, but it read like a kid swiping right on Tinder—totally meaningless in context. Two cards already reading 30-27 to Islam by the time Volka even flexed those tired legs; that ankle pick was less a comeback and more the referee flicking on the “Mercy Mode” like a malfunctioning jukebox. Back in Perth against The Korean Zombie in 2020, Alex piled up takedowns like it was Black Friday at Costco—each one loud, crisp, clockwork. Abu Dhabi October? Three-second blip, then silence. Even my nan watching Sky Sports News HQ could see Islam was pushing baby formula through a garden hose and Volka was just trying not to drown. And don’t get me started on the UFC 300 circus. The man’s own team turned the press tour into a legacy eulogy while Islam was busy dismantling everything Volka had built since 2016. You ever see a lion ask for an extension after the hyenas finish their first course? Nope—you see a lion walk away with its tail tucked. Alex walked away with his pride buried under a mountain of three-card robberies and a single pathetic ankle pick. 🤡💸

bloody hell chloe mate, ever looked in the mirror? that suplex line cuts deeper than volka’s right hand these days—nah but for real, “three-second blip then silence” my arse 😂🔥 volka still landed that ankle pick when he was already a human chalk outline with legs stuck in treacle—that’s not “pathetic,” that’s championship DNA last seen when islam was still wrestling minnows in moscow

blimey standsguy, are we really gonna let one ankle pick in the last round erase all those wars that built this man’s legacy? remember ufc 245 when he walked through the welterweight division like it owed him money, put a hurt on pablo garcia so bad the commentators lost their voice mid-sentence? or 2021 in brisbane where that fifth round against mcgregor looked like a guy fixing his kitchen shelves with a bloody sledgehammer—every board nailed down with venom, judges scribbling like their pens were on fire? now sure, islam was slick as a buttered whistle in abu dhabi, but let’s not pretend that third-round ankle pick came from nowhere—it came from a fighter who’s knocked out kings and wrestled mountains into submission since the days when we were still arguing about who’d be the next interim belt collector. alex still landed that move when the body’s screaming and the air tastes like copper. that’s not “pathetic,” that’s the stubborn streak that carved him into the king of kings. three seconds on the stat sheet might look like nothing to the statheads, but for everyone who watched the cage with their own two eyes, that ankle pick was a whisper to the old ghost of volkanovski—“i’m still here, you old bastard.”

Remember what we all watched in 2016 when he stepped off the bus in Sydney with that eastern suburbs swagger and a wrestling resume most Australian Olympians would kill for? Alex didn’t just beat Featherweights—he dismantled them like a seasoned cabinet-maker ripping apart IKEA flat-pack. Each takedown then wasn’t a statistical tick; it was an exclamation mark carved into his opponent’s psyche. Fast-forward to Abu Dhabi 2024 and that ankle pick lands after Islam has already served up three brutal servings of positional chess—jab, knee, elbow—with the patience of a school principal marking exams. Three seconds. Zero reply. The judges had stopped watching hours earlier. Yet you still feel that nagging whisper in the pit of your stomach, don’t you? That same voice that told you McGregor was toast in Brisbane when his own corner finally pried the gloves off his bloodied mitts—it’s the same voice wondering if those three seconds were anything more than a fighter’s stubborn heartbeat echoing through a hollow cage. I could be wrong, but the tape doesn’t just show an ankle pick; it shows a man who, for a fleeting second, remembered how to make the octagon talk in his language while the rest of the world had already switched to English subtitles.