The man for the land Down Under is back on top.
More than a year after Ilia Topuria knocked him off his perch, Alexander Volkanovski recovered the since-vacated featherweight title on Saturday night with a unanimous decision victory, 49-46, 49-46, 48-47, victory over Diego Lopes in the UFC 314 main event in Miami.
The title had been recently vacated by Topuria after the former champ resolved to move up to lightweight.
Volkanovski (27-4, 16 finishes), who had not competed since Topuria knocked him out last February, took the fight to Lopes (26-7, 22 finishes) early, attacking with quick punches to the head and seeming to steal some of the spirit from his opponent.
But Lopes, a Brazilian who has settled in Mexico, came to life with a brief knockdown of Aussie late in the second round.
Volkanovksi was undeterred, coming back with a strong third frame and weathering fourth-round trouble in the form of a punch that disrupted his eyesight to close the fifth and final round strong.
In the co-main event, rising star Paddy Pimblett (23-3, 17 finishes) didn’t need the full scheduled five rounds to turn in his finest performance to date, manhandling and battering Michael Chandler (23-10, 18 finishes) into a third-round TKO victory.
“Anybody else got any questions?” he screamed into the camera, a shot at the doubters of his progression up the UFC ranks.
Pimblett also called for a fight against one of the top 155-pounders in the promotion: either Dustin Poirier, Justin Gaethje, Charles Oliveira or Arman Tsarukyan.
Preceding Pimblett’s impressive performance, Yair Rodriguez (20-5, 13 finishes) outclassed debuting longtime Bellator star Patricio Pitbull (36-8, 24 finishes) via three-round decision, heating up in the third round after a tepid start to their key featherweight clash.
Rodriguez, the former interim titleholder at 145 pounds, afterward called for a title fight against Volkanovksi in his native Mexico when the UFC returns south of the border in September.
Former light heavyweight title challenger Dominick Reyes (15-4, 12 finishes), a former Stony Brook defensive back, opened the pay-per-view portion of the event with a one-hitter quitter KO of Nikita Krylov (30-10, 28 finishes), flattening him with a left hand in the first round to run his win streak to three after having previously lost four straight.
The next bout — coming after the UFC announced women’s MMA legend Amanda Nunes as a member of its Hall of Fame Class of 2025 — saw Jean Silva (16-2, 15 finishes) tap out Bryce Mitchell (17-3, 10 finishes) via second-round ninja choke, extending his meteoric rise up the featherweight ranks.
In the most pivotal fight on the prelims, Virna Jandiroba (22-3, 15 finishes) dominated ex-title challenger Yan Xiaonan (19-5, nine finishes) with her grappling for a unanimous decision victory and solidifying her case to be the next to face women’s strawweight champ Zhang Weili.
Other victory on the preliminary portion were Dan Ige (via third-round TKO over Sean Woodson), Chase Hooper (via decision against Jim Miller), Julian Erosa (via round-one TKO vs. Darren Elkins), Michał Oleksiejczuk (via first-round TKO against Sedriques Dumas), Sumudaerji (via decision over Mitch Raposo), Marco Tulio (via second-round TKO vs. Tresean Gore) and Nora Cornolle (via round-two submission against Hailey Cowan).
