Alexander Volkanovski coach ‘laughing’ at Ilia Topuria’s confidence: ‘Hard to take a man in a turtleneck sweater too seriously’

Alexander Volkanovski is amused by Ilia Topuria‘s confidence ahead of their huge matchup at UFC 298.

That’s according to Volkanovski’s famed jiu-jitsu coach, Craig Jones, who appeared on The MMA Hour ahead of Volkanovski’s featherweight title defense against Topuria on Saturday in Anaheim, Calif. Topuria recently changed the information atop his social media accounts to indicate he is 15-0 and a world champion, seemingly calling a win in his upcoming fight to be a foregone conclusion. At times, Topuria has spoken as if he’s already looking past “The Great.”

Jones can only have a chuckle at that thinking.

“Ilia, I think has a bit of an identity crisis,” Jones said. “He already thinks he’s the champ, he’s already putting it down. He’s born in Germany, raised in Georgia, calls himself the ‘El Matador.’ For me, personally, I spent a summer in Puerto Rico, I don’t consider myself a Boricua, but yeah, generally speaking he’s an interesting guy.”

“It’s kind of more of a laughing matter,” he added. “It’s hard to take a man in a turtleneck sweater too seriously.”

Topuria has done plenty to earn his confidence, sporting an undefeated record with six UFC wins including a recent drubbing of Josh Emmett. On the other side, Volkanovski has made a case to be considered the greatest featherweight of all time; the champ has never lost at 145 pounds, owning wins over fellow GOATs Max Holloway and Jose Aldo, as well as Brian Ortega, The Korean Zombie and Yair Rodriguez.

However, Volkanovski enters the bout with losses in two of his past three fights, with those setbacks coming in a pair of fights against lightweight champion Islam Makhachev. He turned 35 this past September. One narrative going into the fight is that he’s too old to reign over the featherweight division, and Topuria is the next man to lead it.

“Obviously, business-wise, they probably want to sell a stadium out in Spain or something like that,” Jones said when asked who he thinks the UFC favors in Saturday’s main event. “But Volk’s a huge star. It’s hard, I think they make it work either way. Again, I don’t know, you tell me, a lot of the time they do like a bit of a fresh champ from time to time.”

“Ilia’s already filming a documentary about himself,” he continued. “He’s f****** right on board with that. I don’t know. Us Aussies, we kind of laugh at some of the stuff like that, that extreme confidence. It’s a bold move, because I look at some of these moves obviously from my s***** sport of grappling, but if I’d made a documentary about me becoming ADCC champ, I’ve now lost ADCC four times, so it would be quite a sad, long story. He’s got some balls on him to throw that documentary out there.”

Jones noted that they have nothing but respect for Topuria’s skill set, but that it was difficult to evaluate him as they haven’t had the chance to study how he’d do against elite opponents like Holloway and Rodriguez. Regardless, he backs Volkanovski to outwork Topuria on the feet or on the ground.

As far as the ground game goes, Jones joked fans can see a spectacular finish by the champ – if he sticks to the game plan.

“I’m thinking flying triangle, maybe first round,” Jones said. “I’m really pushing, every single fight, I was like, ‘Volk, I know you’ve got your legacy on the line, but think about my instructional sales. That’s our top priority here.’”