Why do I feel like soon this will be a political fight?
I hope not.
Anyway, if Islam Makhachev is not hiding anything then he could easily end this trend about the IV issue. But I doubt he could end the replays that will be shown on Australian local sports television over and over just to prove to their people that Volkanovski won that fight. I mean, that will still fuel the fire but there's always a solution for that. A rematch.
Silence them with another win and maybe he should end it stronger to shut them up. But if Volk wins, another problem will come out, proving that he may really have cheated at that moment.
Volk needs to push harder if he badly wants it, as there are two fighters also aiming for that title after their fight. Charles Oliveira vs. Beneil Dariush.
Islam Makhachev is actually going to fight Volkanovski again. The rematch is going to happen. As far as I know, both fighters have agreed for the rematch. And I think it is going to be one hell of a rematch. And of course, the Australian media is going to try to say that their player won the fight. He is Australian, so the Australian media is going to support him. And I do not think that is a problem. And as long as he does get the rematch, I do not think there will be any problems at all.
Now if Islam Makhachev will be able to get another when over him? I think that is quite questionable. Because the first one was very close. Islam Makhachev will have to train very well for the rematch. Otherwise, it is going to be a loss for him in my opinion.
The more I watch it, the more I feel he was unlucky not to get the win. Out struck Makhachev, landed the more significant shots, including dropping Islam. Then, Islam gets a few takedowns, and doesn't do anything with them. Most of his control time came from the one round, where Volk was not in trouble one bit, and in fact did more damage while being mounted from the back than Islam did. Islam didn't even threaten submissions, so the control time shouldn't been mitigated due to the fact of not offering anything, other than getting punched in the face.
Then, Volk gets some control time, and actually does damage with it. I had him up 3-2, and I thought those rounds were fairly convincing by him. I can see why he feels hard done by, and apparently Islam was saying in his corner he wants the rematch, and looking back at the announcement of the winner, you can see Islam isn't really expecting his name to be called.
I think most people who goes, and watches that back without much bias will see Volk winning the fight.
The fight was really close. And I think the judges actually did well to score the fight. Now I also believe that this fight could have gone either way. But now I think as there is a controversy going on that probably Volkanovski was robbed, we are subconsciously being very careful about the mistakes that Islam Makhachev makes but not being careful about the mistakes that Volkanovski made while watching the highlight.