“It’s not my problem that the fight was stopped like that.” Volkov – about the help of Taktarov and the fastest victory in the UFC

– I noticed that you were standing at the announcement of the winner, as if you were staring into space. Something bad occurred to you?

– It happened. There was a screen and most likely they were showing either a fight or replays. I don’t remember exactly.

– They said that after the fight there was even a slight apathy of the feeling of a job done.

“There’s this thing, but it wasn’t expressed at the time. Now there’s a feeling of withdrawal, but it doesn’t come when you’re in the octagon.

– You have, on the one hand, modified the preparation, on the other hand — we objectively understand that it was short-lived, and you already knew many coaches who were there now. Do you think you won because the training was changed or because the fight went like this?

— I think I won because the whole team did a good job. A lot of work was done, because there were difficulties even with the organization of training camps, with the search for training partners. In order to organize everything in America, find a car, housing, provided that our maps do not work here now. I had to find ways to fix everything. As for the changes, nobody could have told before that we were training badly. You came and saw for yourself. Probably, it was necessary to change the situation, gain energy and restart. Change room, sparring-partners, add new coaches. Have new emotions and new interests.

The trip to Kislovodsk was very useful in terms of emotions and new sensations. I love the mountains, walked somewhere alone, rethought some things, gained energy, returned to Moscow and went to California. You could say, a little recharged.

– After the fight, they said that they would somehow try to follow all the training in the United States. What’s the point then?

– Being in the United States makes it easier to get good fights. I understand that now there may be difficulties with the documents, my visa expires in a year. And it’s easier to be here to stay afloat. If I were to stay in the United States right now, I wouldn’t know exactly which gym I would be training at. Now there were two gyms, Black House and Ultimate Huntington, but I couldn’t see training partners there of my size and level so I could train and prepare regularly with them. I see a lot of guys, including Russian heavyweights, have moved to Las Vegas. But in any case, about training in the United States, he said aloud some thoughts that were running through his head.

– If you want to fight in the near future and the team has visa problems, the Abu Dhabi tournament in the fall seems like a no-brainer.

– I hope that the next fight will take place in Abu Dhabi, if everything goes like now. Anyway, I’m going to rest for a while, because there were two preparations in a row. I’m going to start training, just in time for fall, I’ll be ready. Not exactly tired, but if you take a break from the fight, you’ll feel like you need to take a short break. Although the form is good, I don’t want to waste time.

– On Tuesday you told me that you had not yet seen Oleg Taktarov and that you did not think if he would be in your corner if Rinat Fakhretdinov came to this tournament in second position. How come Oleg ended up in your corner?

– We saw each other at the weigh-in on Friday, he was with Rinat’s team, arrived the day before. And there was a time when the organizers or the commission started asking me how many corners I would have. There were two of them, and since we were in the same company, he said he could participate, and we registered him as a second. Taktarov helped the guys, my coaches helped the other guys. There was a very good friendly atmosphere in the locker room.

– Once Oleg did not speak very well about your coaches in Moscow. Did I understand correctly that your coaches in Russia are more or less calm in the face of this criticism from a well-deserved veteran?

– I really hope that after our meeting he will change his mind about me and my skills, and therefore about my team. And the form in which I came out is the credit of the whole team, these people with whom I work. and Taras [Кияшко, главный тренер Волкова] he is always very flexible on who you can call, who to train with, in this respect it is very comfortable to work with him. Thanks to this, I am also in my current form. Maybe now he and Oleg will meet somewhere in training and come up with common things. The main thing is that he [Тактаров], in principle, he always supported me, if he wanted to hurt me, I would not have taken him to my corner. He just expresses his thoughts a little differently than what we are used to. Maybe sometimes he didn’t have all the introductory information about me and was talking, analyzing what he saw. I think if Oleg Nikolayevich and even other people looked at how we train, a lot of their questions would disappear.

– The fight lasted 132 seconds, during which you attacked 13 times with either a low kick or a body kick. Why didn’t they strike so often before?

– I did not expect a fight from this opponent. It was good to work with him with his feet, because he acts like the second number, it would be difficult to go to him right away and cut. Rozenstruik meets well with his hands and was sure to kick from distance. The plan was exactly this: kick him apart, then move on to his hands.

– Before the last episode, Rozenstruik went with a series of punches. It got a little unsettling, but somehow you intercepted that attack. I wanted to clarify what exactly was done to stop it?

Maybe he’s just tired? I was actually ready for those attacks, just expecting them from him, because he pretty much works in that style. Waiting for a man to take him out as number two. But if the adversary makes a mistake somewhere and abandons the initiative, he goes on the attack himself. I did not give up the initiative, but I understood that his patience was running out and that he would want to go on the attack. We could not entrust him with the center of the ring and the initiative. I don’t remember what kind of hit I met him with, we both hit him. In my opinion, he threw a shot from the left side or the right towards him. He realized I was attacking too, stopped, gave up the initiative, and I worked on that. He came back, I pressed him a bit, he found his back close to the net, and in this position he does not defend many shots, we saw the same thing in the fight with (Francis) Ngannou. He was working on the same movement as at the start of the fight. There was a moment: he hit the jab in the body for him to react to this move in the future. And then he just shot – he lowered his hands, I hit with the right and hit. Then there was the issue of technology.

Do you regret stopping so soon?

“I felt like I was finishing him off. The ref walked over and saw it all. I wanted to try and kick him in the head, but the ref was already so close it was uncomfortable for me to swing. Seems like I was done, there was no option for him to leave. Even if I had left, I would have pressed him again and done the same .

If the fight hadn’t ended in the first two minutes, it would have ended in the first four. Everything became clear to me from the first minutes, I understood that everything was going to work out. Anyway, it’s not my job and it’s not my problem that the fight ended like that. Everything that depended on me, I did. He had also taken off his cap. And I finished him off at that point and landed several blows with no response. In the end, it turned out that the referee started to stop the fight, and at that moment he came out and showed everyone that he was fine.

I think I could get a few more shots. Then I spoke to different people after the fight, everyone said they stopped in time. Certainly, I spoke with those who supported me.

– Did you talk about anything after the fight with Rozenstruik himself?

– I still couldn’t understand if he knew English or not, because when he tried to tell her something, he just remained silent and looked at me seriously. I shook his hand, said it wasn’t me who stopped the fight, something like that.

– There are seven people more than you in the ranking, you did not fight there only with Ngannou, Tuivasa and Miocic. Can you imagine who they can give in the next fight?

– I have no idea yet. Maybe a rematch with someone you’ve fought before, if that makes sense. Or they will give someone lower in the ranking. Both options work for me.

– You don’t think they’ll give Miocic?

– Looks like he can pick fights for himself now, so he’s unlikely to pick a fight with me. He will try to make more money fighting. For example, with John Jones. So that he has names and maybe more convenient opponents for him, because I’m unlikely to suit him. And according to his working style, I’m taller and, most likely, physically stronger. I’m not saying he’s afraid of me. No. Most likely, he’ll just be interested in a little more status fighting.

– You said you couldn’t record this interview right away, because you would be going somewhere.

Yes, I left Las Vegas for Los Angeles in the evening by car. Now near my friends house, but everyone is sleeping there and I don’t want to wake them up, so I’m sitting in the car for now. They somehow left the door open, I will spend the night on the couch, in the morning they will take me to the airport, and I will fly to my homeland, Russia.

– That is, after the battle you got into the car and drove about 400 km?

— We had dinner with the team and I went.

What if the fight had been harder?

– I hadn’t expected it to be more difficult, I had expected it to be normal.