By Ronan McEvoy
UFC 284 will take place this Saturday, February 12, in Perth, Australia, and will feature a fight for the UFC lightweight championship between Islam Makhachev, current lightweight champ, and Alexander Volkanovski, current featherweight champ. As well as a featherweight contender between Yair Rodriguez and Josh Emmett.
Volkanovski is looking to become the fifth fighter in UFC history to become a simultaneous two-weight world champion. However, this will be no easy bout as he goes against the Dagestan wrestler Islam Makhachev.
Makhachev will likely try and get this fight to the ground early. We’ve seen this approach in his fight with Dan Hooker where he was able to get him down quickly and submit him in just over two minutes.
As we saw in his fight with Brian Ortega, Volkanovski is no stranger to his ground game. Oretega had Volkanovski in two tight submissions that looked like the fight was about to be over. However, Volkanovski was able to keep his composure and fight/slide his way out of the submissions and get the fight back on the feet and eventually win via decision.
The most interesting question in this fight is how both will be in the stand-up game. Volkanovski has serious power in his hands. Just look at his fight against The Korean Zombie and the destruction to The Korean Zombie’s face after. Volkanovski also showed his boxing skill in his last fight against Max Holloway where he dominated the self appointed “best boxer in the UFC”.
Makhachev has shown significant improvement in his boxing, especially in his last fight against Charles Olivera. Makhachev had clean and crisp combinations and seemed a lot more comfortable on his feet. Machachev even scored a knockdown against Olivera before submitting him in the second round.
“I think this is going to be a really fun one to watch,” said Tyler Mulhern, senior UFC fan. “It’s really hard to pick this one but I think Volk can knock Islam out. It has to be early in the first round though.”
The co main event for this card is a featherweight bout between Yair Rodriguez and Josh Emmet. Both fighters are great on the feet with Rodriguez having a wider stance while Emmet has more of a traditional boxing stance.
Both fighters have great knockout power in their hands but Rodriguez tends to focus mostly on his kicks. Rodriguez is ranked number two and Emmett is ranked at number five, whoever wins this fight will most likely get the next shot at featherweight champ Volkanovski.
“I really like Yair in this one,” said Chris Palko. “He is such an entertaining fighter and he also fights so weird that it just works for him. I think if he utilizes his kicks then he’ll definitely get the job done early.”
There are some other great fights on this main card including a welterweight fight between Jack Della Maddalena and Randy Brown, a heavyweight fight between Justin Tafa and Parker Porter, and a light heavyweight fight between Jimmy Crute and Alonzo Menifield.
“I’m looking forward to Crute vs Menifield,” said Marc Cohen, senior UFC fan. “Both guys are great boxers but Menifield has knocked out so many dudes in his career that I think he puts Crute away early.
