Alexander Volkanovski: ”I was drinking every day” before the rematch

Alexander Volkanovski. Photo via YouTube

Alexander Volkanovski was not in a good place when he took the rematch against lightweight champion Islam Makhachev on just 12 days’ notice.

During a recent interview, the featherweight champion revealed he was drinking alcohol every day prior to getting the call from the UFC.

“I’m known for being disciplined all year round, 24/7 and I just wasn’t that time. I was really disappointed,” Volkanovski told Freestylebender.

”I was more upset with who I was in the previous months leading up to that. To be honest, it made it a little easier because it snapped me out of it. It snapped me out of it. I was drinking every day for like three or four weeks.”

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Alexander Volkanovski: ”Man, this has to stop”

The champion claimed he’s usually not a heavy drinker, but when he got the call from the UFC he was weighing 83 kilograms (183 lbs) and not in the best shape of his life.

”I’ve never, ever done that. But I was like, ‘Ah, I’m not training much,’ and the surgery and just trying to help around the house I was like, ‘All right, I’ll have a couple of drinks here, they’ll go down good,’ you know what I mean? It was going down too good. Every day I went to cans with the fam and come back and even then I was like, ‘Man, this has to stop.’ I was saying that even the day I before I got the call.”

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