Alexan­der Volka­novs­ki decid­ed to per­form instead. In the UFC, this sit­u­a­tion is called a short notice fight: the ath­lete sud­den­ly finds out about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take part in the fight and does not have time to prop­er­ly pre­pare.

Per­haps this played a cer­tain role in the out­come of the fight, but hard­ly a deci­sive one: dur­ing the UFC 284 tour­na­ment, Islam already man­aged to defeat an oppo­nent from Aus­tralia, even if this fight became the most dif­fi­cult in his career, and after that a major scan­dal broke out with dop­ing accu­sa­tions.

In any case, at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi, Volka­novs­ki was unable to pro­vide wor­thy com­pe­ti­tion to Islam Makhachev. The fight was lim­it­ed to just one spec­tac­u­lar round. The Russ­ian fight­er knocked out Volka­novs­ki in the first round and won by unan­i­mous deci­sion. Now 31-year-old Makhachev has 25 vic­to­ries and 1 defeat in MMA. The 35-year-old Volka­novs­ki has 26 wins and 3 loss­es.

But the tour­na­ment was remem­bered not only for the bright vic­to­ry of Islam Makhachev. Oth­er ath­letes from Rus­sia also per­formed in Abu Dhabi and showed a high lev­el of skill. The pre­lim­i­nary card fea­tured the long-await­ed debut of Shara Bul­let (Sharabut­din Magome­dovich Magome­dov) against Bruno Sil­va. The Russ­ian took the vic­to­ry by unan­i­mous deci­sion. Fans were also treat­ed to a wom­en’s fight between Vic­to­ria Dudako­va and Jin Yu Frey. The Russ­ian woman won by unan­i­mous deci­sion.

And on the main card, the Rus­sians were in every fight. First, the bat­tles between Ikram Aliskerov and Var­ley Alves, as well as Said Nur­magome­dov and Muin Gafurov took place. Both Rus­sians won in the first round.

And the main fight of the evening (togeth­er with the per­for­mance of Islam Makhachev) was the fight between Khamzat Chi­maev and Kamaru Usman. For Chi­maev, the vic­to­ry was 13 in a row, and after the end of the fight the fight­er made a fiery speech in sup­port of Pales­tine, which lat­er spread across social net­works.