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ANAHEIM, California – Alexander Volkanovski played his age this week, wearing grandfatherly clothes, old man’s glasses and pretending to fall asleep at the pre-fight press conference.
In reality, Volkanovski is not old. He is only 35 years old. But technically, that’s an old age for a UFC featherweight champion. In fact, no male fighter at lightweight or below has won a title fight after turning 35 years old.
That has been the biggest story leading up to Volkanovski’s title defense against Ilia Topuria in the main event of UFC 298 on Saturday night here at the Honda Center. Topuria is only 27 years old and is one of the most exciting young fighters in MMA. Can Volkanovski make history and prove that he is the exception to the 35-year rule? Or will he pass the 145-pound torch to the entire Topuria?
ESPN has Volkanovski ranked No. 3 in the world on its pound-for-pound list. At featherweight, ESPN has Volkanovski ranked #1 and Topuria ranked #5.
Volkanovski (26-3) has five successful featherweight title defenses and six UFC featherweight title victories, the second most of all time. The Australian-born fighter is coming off a loss to UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev via knockout at UFC 294 in October. Volkanovski also lost to Makhachev in February 2023 via unanimous decision, before defending the featherweight belt over Yair Rodriguez at UFC 290 last July.
Topuria (14-0) won his first six fights in the UFC, four of them in the finish. The German-born fighter of Georgian descent lives and trains in Spain. Topuria is coming off a unanimous decision victory over Josh Emmett last June.
UFC 298 fight card
ESPN+PPV, 10 pm Eastern Time
Men’s Featherweight Championship: Alexander Volkanovski (c) vs. Ilia Topuria
Middleweight: Robert Whittaker vs. Paulo Costa
Welterweight: Geoff Neal vs. Ian Machado Garry
Men’s Bantamweight: Merab Dvalishvili vs. Henry Cejudo
Middleweight: Anthony Hernandez vs. Roman Kopylov
ESPN/ESPN+, 8 p.m.
Strawweight: Amanda Lemos vs. Mackenzie Dern
Heavyweight: Marcos Rogerio de Lima vs. Justin Tafa
Bantamweight: Rinya Nakamura vs. Carlos Vera
Light Heavyweight: Zhang Mingyang vs. Brendson Ribeiro
ESPN+, 6:30 pm
Welterweight: Danny Barlow vs. Josh Quinlan
Welterweight: Oban Elliott vs. Val Woodburn
Women’s Flyweight: Andrea Lee vs. Miranda Maverick
(c) = defending champion