How Alexander Volkanovski Can HUMBLE Ilia Topuria At UFC 298. Creating A Game Plan

In this video I discuss and breakdown how Alexander Volkanovski can beat Ilia Topuria, and give him a humbling in the process, at UFC 298. I talk about how Volkanovski can out strike and out grapple Ilia. Let me know what you think in the comments.
#alexandervolkanovski #iliatopuria

Become A Member Of This Channel For Exclusive Livestreams & Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7LzaJA-R2E52qzd5GW-kpg/join

Time Stamps:
0:00 Intro
2:00 The Striking
6:04 Ilia’s Biggest Weakness / Leg Kicks
9:59 Volk Is The Better Grappler
17:15 Volk’s Fight IQ & Preparation
19:34 What Volk Shouldn’t Do
21:40 Stop Over-Glazing Topuria

If you are picking vul and you’re worried I will say this and maybe this will make you feel a little bit more confident in his chances dude the way that ilad beat Josh EMT is getting overrated like where was all this hyper Yer going into that volkanovski fight because I don’t

Remember as many people glazing his performance against EMT like people are doing to Ilia I mean you open the comment section on an Ilia toor a Josh EMT fight and people are acting like they’ve never seen this before uh I actually have and I’ve seen it done better although I believe that Alexander

Volkanovski is going to lose to Ilia Toria at UFC 298 I want to talk about how volkanovski can win this fight I know this guy’s the featherweight goat for a reason he’s got one of the deepest toolbags and some of the highest fight IQ we’ve ever seen in the octagon and he

Has a good chance to win this fight fight now he’s up against the odds he’s 35 there’s never been a 35-year-old to win a title in the lighter weight classes he’s got knocked out four months ago and he’s facing a confident knockout artist in ilot Toria but we’re talking

About Ilia this guy calls himself The Matador right I mean it’s kind of easy to be the Matador when you got a guy that’s in front of you like Josh EMT who’s not able to make adjustments who does one thing and that’s charged for dip your head down and throw big meaty

Hooks and I think this is probably one of the biggest steps up in competition we’ve seen for a title Challenger a new title Challenger that is in recent memory we’re going from pillow hands Bryce Mitchell to Josh EMT to vonavi who’s got all the experience in the

World who is a freak of nature in his own right who’s going to have a lot of physical advantages in this fight so how does volkanovski beat this guy who’s talking a lot of [ __ ] ilot tooro he thinks he’s going to make volkanovski look simple he thinks he’s going to lay

Him out in the first round I’d hate to see that I want vul to Humble this kid and I’ve come up with the way he can do it the first thing we’re going to need volkanovski to do is we’re going to need him to bring a whisk and he’s going to

Need to bring a bowl because he’ll have to make some scrambled eggs if he’s expecting to get his hand raised next weekend and what I mean by that is he’s going to need to scramble the mind of ilot toori he’s going to need to really overload the senses

And it all starts with a jab vul can just plant that piston like jab he’s got which is one of the best Jabs in MMA with his 2 and 1 half inch reach Advantage where he can land on Toria and Toria can’t hit him it’s a weapon that

You can use while still being safe and being able to stick and move and stay out of range if he lands that jab on ilot Toria early you’re going to need to respect it now all of a sudden ilot torei has got that on his mind he’s got

Hit with a couple of Jabs now volkanovski is gonna start fainting the jab and now OT Tori is gonna start bringing his hands up he’s gonna start anticipating it the next thing you know volkanovski is going to throw a low kick he’s going to land that low kick on the

Bladed stance of Ilia Toria and now ilot Toria has to think about low kicks volkanovski can switch stances he can crack toori with another jab then he can start fainting the jab from Southpaw and now toori is thinking about all these other looks banovski can level change

All right he can get Toria in the clinch something that vul likes to do in his fights is he clinches up with his opponents and he’s not always looking to take them down but just to take the wind out of their sails just to feel them and

To make it a physical fight just to drain their energy a little bit to give them another look as I talked about with these faints now if he’s fainting level changes Toria needs to respect that as well so now all of a sudden we got volkanovski switching stances we got him

Throwing volume early he’s got to throw volume early he can’t sit there there and freeze up because in order to actually have this like effective faint game you’ve got to establish a real threat early on of all of these things you got to show them that I’ll shoot a

Tak down I will kick the legs I will go with a jab and now Toria is forced to make adjustments now he’s forced to think on the Fly and that’s just not something that Josh EMT really made him do I mean did Josh EMT make any adjustments in that fight did

He Force Ilia to adjust no he was just falling right into pora’s trap right into the pocket head first missing big and getting cracked for it think about Bryce Mitchell Bryce Mitchell the only thing he was really threatening Toria with was that threat of the takedown

There was nothing else Toria had to fear that was the only real thing he had to think about and because he didn’t have to respect Bryce Mitchell’s power or his striking because Bryce Mitchell’s not fainting and giving him all these different looks to think about Toria just was Keen to steamroll him just

Blast through this guy okay the only time we’ve seen Toria face adversity is in that ji Herbert fight and that’s a toothpick and ji Herbert I mean listen we’re not just going to act like ji Herbert is some Mastermind on the feet he landed a nice head kick he landed a

Nice knee ilad Toria was able to take him down and bite his time and in the second round he got in on close range and teed off with a big combination in the pocket on a guy that has no pop so what’s going to happen if Toria doesn’t

Land that big knock down in the first what’s going to happen if he doesn’t get that first round finish and things aren’t so easy well we don’t know yet all right we don’t know yet and I think that this guy may get frustrated and if vul can draw him into this reactionary

Style of fight well he’s going to force ilot to work he’s going to be biting on all these faints he’s going to be thinking a th000 miles per hour and that’s going to cause stress that’s going to cause discomfort and if you’re uncomfortable in a fight well you’re

Going to expend more energy and you’re going to tire out quicker and you’re going to make mistakes and that’s where volkanovski can hurt him with something another thing that’s going to make Ilia frustrated in this fight are the kicks we’re going to have to talk about this everyone’s noticing ilot toria’s bladed

Stance he’s super heavy on that lead leg and that’s looking like free money for a guy like volkanovski who is known for being one of the best leg kickers in the UFC and you got to ask yourself like who’s been able to take advantage of that because it’s not been Josh EMT who

Although he was the guy that threw the most kicks at ilot Toria compared to any of Ila’s past opponents he still only threw like 16 or 17 of them throughout the whole fight and he’s not known for having great kicks he’s not known for being able to

Set things up off of those kicks or even fainting after them again simpleton Josh EMT how many kicks did volkanovski throw against Max Holloway in their first fight and the reason why I bring up this fight is because H had a very similar stance to ilot Toria a little bit

Different his legs weren’t as wide apart but he was heavy on his lead leg and volkanovski took advantage of that and hit him with 70 plus low kicks and these were all kicks to damage Max Holloway he really destroyed the lead leg of Max who just didn’t have his base underneath of

Him for the rest of the fight and we saw him diminish as that fight progressed this also forced Max Holloway to switch his stances because he was just getting battered on that lead leg and he wasn’t as effective in Southpaw right he’s not comfortable there and he wasn’t able to

Make adjustments until the rematch where he had a much lighter on his lead leg type of approach to the fight he was bouncing around he was lifting up his lead leg like he’s in a Muay Thai fight and so volkanovski batters that lead leg of ilot to Poria he may Force ilot to

Switch his stance to South Southpaw and will he be as effective I don’t think so he’s probably going to be a lot more uncomfortable there and that’ll also diminish his chances of knocking vul out he relies on that sturdy strong base boxing stance in order to have his

Success and you also look at that stance I think there are some diminishing returns for that [ __ ] because although he can generate a lot of power he’s also just super stationary I mean we don’t really see this guy moving a lot and I just don’t think that Toria is going to

Be able to have a lot of sustained success I don’t think he’s going to be able to land a high output in this fight because volkanovski is not just going to sit in the pocket with him he’s going to be chewing at the legs and then he’s

Going to be out he’s going to be slamming him with Jabs and then he’s going to be out he’s going to be switching his stances and you’re just not going to have a lot of time to reset and get comfortable and sit on those shots so I

I think that these kicks they can take away the already limited movement of Ilia and they’re just free points if this goes to a decision I mean volkanovski can land like 60 70 kicks on this guy and you know that’s going to win him rounds and a young guy like ilot

Toria who sure he looked patient against EMT I don’t think he’s going to be so patient when he starts to overthink and he starts to get frustrated because he doesn’t have his big first round KO moment or it’s a competitive fight like he’s very confident but I wonder if he’s telling the truth

When he says he thinks this is going to be an easy fight because you know you got to prepare for the worst and of course this guy trains hard he has a good gas tank he’s tough he’s got a lot of skills he’s well-rounded but what if

He really doesn’t expect a war or an incredibly frustrating chess match and that’s how this fight could play out if he’s not expecting it then well things aren’t looking so good for him the last thing thing I want to talk about is the grappling ilot Toria is like volkanovski

Another stubby guy in this division who’s got a low center of gravity and we have yet to see volkanovski try to Grapple against someone that’s got that similar build one thing that I know is that vul is the bigger guy and he will have the strength advantage in this

Fight volkanovski’s fought in the cage at featherweight at over 170 pounds I believe it was either in the first max Holloway fight or the rematch he weighed over 170 in the cage and I’ll try to find the article where he talked about that I’ll have that on screen right now this is a

Guy that used to play rugby at 200 plus pounds he is one of the biggest featherweights on the roster and that’s why he’s been able to like muscle guys around and when he’s taken guys down he’s a [ __ ] to deal with because he’s so heavy when he gets on top of guys

Right Yer Rodriguez just kind of got squashed against volkanovski and vul does a really good job at maintaining top position while not really engaging in all of the Jiu-Jitsu like yir Rodriguez is a guy that if anyone can do it he’s probably going to be the guy to be throwing up

All these like wiry spindly submissions from bottom same thing with Brian Ortega but volkanovski does a really good job at posturing up and keeping a wide base it’s like this guy can kind of stand up while maintaining top position while raining down ground in pound right well ilot

Toria has a similar stature he’s also got this like compact frame and he is the the the more Jiu-Jitsu heavy guy of course he has a wrestling background but I don’t see ilot Toria throwing up any triangles from bottom I don’t see ilot Toria going for an arm bar or anything

Like that ilot toor if he gets taken down he’s probably going to try to reverse the position or get back up to his feet okay and I think it’s going to be hard for him to do that because volkanovski has shown when he takes people down they

Stay there right Yaya Rodriguez did not get up when he got taken down by vul ran Ortega did not get up when vul and offski had him on his back and started teeing off with him and we saw Ortega get the [ __ ] beat out of him I mean vul

Almost finished him in that third round which everyone thinks of as like a Brian Ortega round because Ortega had the submission attempt but vul almost finished him at the end of it and then in the fourth round we saw something similar vul almost finished Ortega at

The end of the fourth round there were two rounds where Ortega was left squashed like a bug on the canvas after the ground and pound tie raid that volkanovski went on you look at when he got on top of Islam makv in that fifth round after he dropped him I mean he was

On top of makv for about a minute and 5 Seconds and just rained down on him with ground and pound strikes and was able to keep him there and that’s pretty impressive because you know sometimes guys aren’t opting for ground and pound because that’ll give their opponents an

Ability to get up that’ll give them an opening now why am I so confident that vul can take Toria down well his grappling has been improving a lot throughout his career and a lot of people forget about this so they just don’t know it because maybe they’re new

To the sport but volkanovski came into the UFC as a guy that was going into his fights with a wrestling heavy game planned first and foremost that is what he used to do in his early UFC fights he would take guys down and he would finish

Them on the ground so not only did he come into the UFC with that being hiso and his striking improved from there he also wrestled when he was a little kid and he he has that experience too he’s got the rugby toughness and I’m sure

Rugby has helped him uh get used to like muscling around people that are bigger than him as well and like Toria for example it’s hard to take him down he has great takedown defense he has good wrestling he has good Jiu-Jitsu but he has been held down where volkanovski’s

Never been held down I guess I’ll take that back for taking into account the makev fight but the only guy that’s been able to control him on the ground is Islam makev who needed to get his back who needed to get the body triangle ilot Torri is probably not getting the body

Triangle on vul he’s not got this long frame and compared to volkanovski Islam makv does have like this wire ref frame he’s a much taller guy he’s got longer legs and it’s a lot easier to take a guy like volkanovski’s back ilot toore he’s another stubby tree stump he’s not doing

That vul doesn’t take anyone’s back okay Chad Mendes tried to take vul’s back back in the day couldn’t do it vul got right back up to his feet and I trust in volkanovski’s ability to get up to his feet if he gets taken down a whole lot

More than I trust in ilot toor’s ability to get up to his feet I think that if you look at ilot tor takedown defense statistics they are a little bit inflated I think it may be like 90 85% the only guy that’s been able to take

Him down or there have been two uh Yousef salao which was in his UFC debut and then there was Bryce Mitchell not really going to talk about Yousef salao because he couldn’t really do much with it but Yousef salao who is that guy right I mean we’re not really going to

Take that seriously and then we’re talking about Bryce Mitchell who’s a phenomenal Grappler also happens to be much small ER than volkanovski and not as high level he’s a different Grappler but he’s not as good on the ground as vul despite him he’s a Grappler bro I

Know people are going to be mad at what I just said because Bryce Mitchell’s known as a Grappler and vul is the well-rounded guy but it’s true listen Bryce Mitchell took down Ilia Toria in their first round and had him down for like a minute and 10 seconds

Toria could not get back up to his feet this was a fresh ilot Toria who was preparing for Bryce Mitchell couldn’t get up and I’m not saying that’s like embarrassing Bryce Mitchell didn’t really do a whole lot of damage but he still held him down I’d imagine that volkanovski who’s probably 15

Pounds bigger than Bryce Mitchell in the cage who has sick ground and pound and all the grappling experience in the world with a guy like Craig Jones who’s into all the specifics training I think that volkanovski will be able to do a whole lot more than that and he’ll be

Able to keep the position and if ilot takes vul down good luck keeping him there and if you’re looking at volkanovski’s takedown defense stats the reason they’re not as good is because he’s not worried about getting taken down because he knows he can get back up

To his feet and he’s been able to prove that so essentially I think that volkanovski should early on in this fight establish the threat of the takedown as well as the jab and the kicks cuz they’re free money and those are things that you can throw out there

Where you’re not taking as much risk he should establish the takedown threat early and he should commit to it to try to take the the wind out of Ilia sails who is trying to knock him out in the first round don’t give him that ability

Who cares if the first round is a little bit boring take him down keep him there and fight his ego a little bit just take away this guy’s ability to have success right if you take away il’s offensive success early he’s going to get frustrated he’s going to get

Stressed out and he’s going to get tired and he’ll make mistakes and that’s when you could see volkanovski run away with this fight who has all this five round experience who’s never tired out in a fight and sure Ilia went five rounds with big meaty hooks himself but that guy’s not

Really going to make you work cuz he’s not giving you a lot of looks he’s throwing the same thing over and over and over again so you could talk about the age and the chin and the durability it may not be on volkanovski’s side but what is on his side is experience and

Technique and one thing that older Fighters have been able to maintain is the ability to out grapple guys especially when they still have a bit of their strength look at Glover desera Glover deser has talked about having to change his style as he got older to be a

Lot more heavy with the grappling and not be as consistent and aggressive with striking and he made it work into his later years Glover was strong into his later years volkanovski is still a big guy he’s looking to be in phenomenal shape right now I I don’t think I remember seeing volkanovski this

Shredded he he’s up for this fight he’s motivated man and I think that with all the grappling training camps training with guys like Craig Jones with the team he’s got around him Coach Joe Lopez I mean they’ve been able to come up with these Mastermind game plans to just totally demolish these

Elite Fighters I mean listen if you’re demolishing Max Holloway in a boxing match you got to have an elite level game plan going into that fight and you’ve got to be like a next level fight IQ guy and volkanovski has some of the best fight IQ in UFC history he’s just

He can see everything coming he’s got really good instincts and so I trust him to have like a perfect game plan but it’s going to be important for him to actually implement it and throw his hands and throw his kicks and not freeze up if he

Freezes up ilad torei is not going to have to think and he can just go out there and and utilize his own game plan and he can overwhelm V volovski and he could take it to him and the the tide could change and momentum is a big thing

In fights and the last thing I’m going to talk about is what volkanovski shouldn’t do and this is engage in a boxing match now I don’t think vul can box with Ilia at all and what I mean by that is that’s not to say he can’t have

Success at all it’s just he should not be in the pocket with Toria he should not be doing what he did to Max Holloway in the third fight I don’t think he can do that and the reason why I’m bringing up this Trilogy with Max Holloway for

Example is because a lot of people are under the impression that volkanovski just destroyed Max and hardly got hit like it was the the most masterful performance we’ve ever seen and it’s up there but a big part of why we talk about it as being a master class is

Because volkanovski clearly outboxed and damaged and won and didn’t have a lot of adversity against Max and that’s a guy in Max that’s maybe like a top 15 fighter ever one of the greatest Strikers we’ve ever seen that’s impressive but Holloway still was landing on vul and Holloway he’s not

Known for his Power Man and it’s like if you actually watch those later rounds closely outside of the first two which were totally dominant for vul Max Holloway was putting a lot of pressure on volkanovski and he was Landing shots like he was Landing Combos and vul

Didn’t wrestle at all I don’t think he shot a single takedown he hardly threw any kicks in that fight he just can’t afford to do that with a guy like Tori even if he starts off having success early that’s someone that’s always going to be dangerous on the feet and you just

Can’t afford to take those big shots coming off of a KO loss so he needs to be striking with the kickboxing heavy approach sticking and moving with the jab switching stances showing faints going after those free points with the leg kicks damaging the lead leg shooting takedowns and that’s his key to Victory

I know it sounds simple but he has to shoot takedowns to win this fight it’s going to be hard to take down Toria but I think volkanovski has some tricks up his sleeve I think he’s crafty he’s 35 he may not be as durable he may start to

Slow down a little bit but he is Crafty I think volkanovski can make Ilia look um rather mediocre in this fight if this goes to a decision I think we’re going to see volkanovski school this man and put him in his place give him a lesson the way

That ilad beat Josh EMT is getting overrated like dude I’ve seen I’ve seen Yaya Rodriguez roll him into a [ __ ] blunt talking about ilot toor he’s trudging forward right there slugging around the Octagon slow as [ __ ] Josh EMT running Head Over Heels sprinting head first K on a platter chin on a silver

Platter and people glaze that performance like there’s never been something like that before when I’m looking at yayer Rodriguez who minced Josh EMT up and turned him in some into some ground beef and made tacos with him yir Rodriguez literally turned Josh em into a [ __ ] joint and he smoked

Him yet ilot toor yeah he has a little fight with him like that was a fight EMT was still in there EMT was still in his face like Landing shots every now and then Landing a kick dude Josh EMT landed one punch on the face of

Yir so we’re talking about guys that are dangerous vul’s dealt with them the thing that separates ilot to Poria from the rest of the pack is that he’s well round and he’s got a similar stature to vul you can give him a taste of his own

Medicine but when it comes to Danger on the feet skill-wise I don’t think Illy is much more dangerous than yair okay yeah he puts people to sleep fair enough didn’t do it the first time he actually fought an elite fighter in Josh EMT he didn’t put Bryce Mitchell to sleep

Dropped him fair enough I think Yer could probably drop Bryce Mitchell too all right oh but you don’t understand he dropped Josh emmt all over the place yeah Yer smoked him up and [ __ ] like I mean I don’t even have any words to describe how diabolical that beating was

That emit took from yahir yet he just didn’t get the same pop did not get the same pop going into the vulk fight sure there were some people that were picking him to beat volkanovski but vk’s dealt with danger before and I actually think that Yer he’s a little

Bit more unpredictable he’s faster you don’t know what’s coming he’s got a wider variety of attacks and I actually think yir again I I think that if anyone has the more unpredictable Style where they can catch you out of nowhere with some random technique That You Don’t See coming from

Any range kicking range boxing range clinch range you don’t know where what how who you don’t even know who’s throwing it sometimes yet ilot toor is throwing some [ __ ] hands I think V’s seen some hands I think vul seen some hands right so again you know you guys are acting

Like this is the first real KO artist dude Yer Rodriguez could have flipped the [ __ ] night switch on owski he’s a little bit trickier I mean that’s like a pop quiz every single second you got to solve it ilot deoria you know what you’re going to get right you know what

You’re going to get with ilot tore he’s going to trudge forward and try to [ __ ] land a big old bomb and yeah he’s throwing perfect technique he’s throwing crisp combinations he’s got beautiful counters he’s got finesse he’s skilled he’s a boxer he’s a boxer with some takedown defense and he’s the

Smaller guy right we’re talking about the the smaller guy who has been held down before who’s a boxer who’s never dealt with anyone that can make people think as much as vul and overthink is the right word to use so I think vovi is the more skilled

Fighter if this goes down to a decision vul should win this one again just just watch this fight with EMT just look at Ilia he’s just plotting around plot he knows emt’s eventually going to go right right into his trap right emt’s throwing a couple of things those are big meaty

Hooks he’s not throwing kicks he’s not fainting he doesn’t have a particularly good job and he’s not shooting takedowns he’s just not giving him all these looks ful can scramble his brain he could piss him off and he can [ __ ] him up so that’s it hope you guys enjoyed

The video until next time