After an impressive 28-second victory against fellow prospect Misha Cirkunov, Volkan Oezdemir has taken another huge step towards title contention. The 27-year-old Swiss fighter immediatly called out for an even bigger fight as he asked the UFC for the opportunity to meet Jimi Manuwa inside the octagon.
After just two fights in the UFC, Volkan has positioned himself in the elite. Currently sitting at #4 in the rankings, Oezdemir will take on #2 Jimi Manuwa on July 29 at UFC 214.
For many, Volkan remains an unknown surprise who magically appeared among the top lightheavyweights in the rankings with just two fights for the promotion. Others claim he shouldn’t be so high in the rankings with just two fight, but the one thing nobody can dispute is that he has definitely made the most out of his opportunities.
Defeating Ovince Saint Preux is no easy task and Oezdemir was able to do it in his UFC debut. Volkan’s split-decision victory immediatly put him on the map and rightfully so. Oezdemir landed more strikes and was more effective than Ovince, defending all takedown attempts and making the most damage.
His fight against Cirkunov was expected to be a reality check, as Misha was 4-0 in the UFC and was regarded like a future contender. However Volkan needed just 5 punches to go through Cirkunov and was high on confidence at the post-fight conference. He didn’t hesitate to call out Jimi Manuwa and his reasons made sense.
“Because he’s a striker, and now that Anthony Johnson is retired, I guess he’s the man in striking. I’m a striker. I want to be the man too, so we need to settle that.”
Should Volkan beat Manuwa, he’d probably be just one win away from a title shot.
UFC 214 takes place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. The rematch between Cormier and Jones headlines the event’s main card, which will air live on pay-per-view.
With the addition of this fight, the UFC 214 fight card looks like this:
- Daniel Cormier vs. Jon Jones
- Jimi Manuwa vs. Volkan Oezdemir
- Ricardo Lamas vs. Chan Sung Jung
- Dooho Choi vs. Andre Fili
- Aljamain Sterling vs. Renan Barao
- Brian Ortega vs. Renato Moicano
- Sage Northcutt vs. Claudio Puelles
- Alexandra Albu vs. Kailin Curran
- Josh Burkman vs. Drew Dober
- Dmitrii Smoliakov vs. Adam Wieczorkowski
- Jarred Brooks vs. Eric Shelton