Alexander Volkanovski was not impressed with Giga Chikadze’s performance against Calvin Kattar.
In the lead-up to the fight, Chikadze took shots at Volkanovski saying the champ ducked him and picked the easy fight by taking on Korean Zombie at UFC 273. However, he still had to face Kattar in the main event of UFC Vegas 46 which he ended up getting dominated in and now Volkanovski blasted the Georgian.
“Look, there’s going to be people that are going to trash talk and all that. It’s a part of the game, we understand that. But there’s other sides to it,” he said on The MMA Hour. “And then there is real disrespect not only to me, but to Calvin Kattar as well. You’ve got a man, a top contender in front of you, and you’re acting like you’re just going to walk through this guy. Not only, let’s win first before you start carrying it on, [but] you’re probably going to get injured. The fight’s not too far away and all that. There’s so many things that come into play. By trying to say, ‘You’re taking the easy way,’ and then disrespecting Zombie like he did, it’s just disrespecting everybody.”
Alexander Volkanovski Rips ‘Punching Bag’ Giga Chikadze After Calvin Kattar Fight
According to Alexander Volkanovski, he thinks UFC Vegas 46 was a big eye-opener for Giga Chikadze. He believes the loss should make Chikadze realize he is not on the top level and needs to make a ton of changes if he is going to eventually fight for UFC gold.
“I think [UFC Vegas 46] was a big eye-opener for Giga,” Volkanovski said. “That, mate, [against] good guys, you can’t just rely on a kick. You know, the Giga kick. It just shows you, you nullify his Giga kick and he ends up being a punching bag. Again just, man, that’s why you’ve got to fight these contenders. Fight all the top guys, guys that are going to mix it up. See where you are before you start facing the champ.
“You could imagine when you talk about making adjustments, game planning, cardio, all these tools that I have mate, I would have made him look really, really bad. You could imagine. So before you want to take out these types of guys, let’s experiment with some of these good guys and see where you’re at. And he showed that he’s not really at that level.”
Alexander Volkanovski is coming off the decision win over Brian Ortega and set to headline UFC 273 against the Korean Zombie.
