Alexander Volkanovski: UFC featherweight champion eating '4,000 calories a day' for lightweight title shot

Volkanovski (right) has not fought at lightweight for six years.

UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski says he is eating 4,000 calories a day in preparation for a move to lightweight.

The Australian, 34, is widely expected to be the first opponent for new lightweight champion Islam Makhachev.

Makhachev beat Charlies Oliveira at UFC 280 last month before being joined by Volkanovski in the octagon afterwards.

Volkanovski is aiming to become only the fifth simultaneous double champion in UFC history.

"I'm eating over 4,000 calories a day which is hard - I never thought I'd complain about eating too much food," he said.

"I want to be the champ champ. I think I deserve it, it's fired me right up. It's a challenge yeah, but that's what excites me."

Volkanovski, who has held the featherweight champion since 2019 and defended it four times, says the plan is to face Russia's Makhachev at UFC 284 in Perth, Australia in February.

In holding two UFC titles in two divisions at the same time, he could follow in the footsteps of Daniel Cormier, Conor McGregor, Amanda Nunes and Henry Cejudo.

Volkanovski was speaking to the media before UFC 281 in New York, where a number of his team-mates at New Zealand's City Kickboxing Gym are competing.

One of those is middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, who defends his title against Alex Pereira in the main event.

Like Volkanovski, New Zealand's Adesanya has dominated his respective division since 2019, successfully defending the unified title five times.

In Brazil's Pereira however, he faces an opponent who defeated him twice during his kickboxing career before he joined the UFC in 2018.

Despite Pereira's previous victories over Adesanya, Volkanovski is still backing the champion to defend his title.

"Obviously Pereira is very dangerous, powerful and stylistically a very high level kickboxer but I feel where Izzy [Adesanya] is now, he has evolved so much," said Volkanovski.

"I think Izzy will be too much for him. Pereira will be aggressive and come forward, but we all know Izzy is good at landing and not letting you land back.

"I know Izzy has the fight IQ, range control and maybe even be more dangerous [than Pereira]."

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