Volkov did not rule out that his team would file a protest against the result of the fight with Cyril Gan

Russian heavyweight Alexander Volkov did not rule out that his team would file a protest against the referee’s decision in the fight with Frenchman Cyril Gan.

Volkov and Gan had a rematch at UFC 310 in Las Vegas. Gan won by split decision. UFC President Dana White called the decision controversial and suggested that Volkov won the confrontation.

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— All the controversy is around the second round. How do you remember him?

— I think that I won the first round, to be honest. I don’t understand why they gave him to Gann, but we need to look at the statistics of strikes, transfers, control and total damage received. The fight is judged according to a huge number of criteria. But the fight was completely under my dictation, and this is one of the criteria. All the activity was on my side. He offered practically nothing, except that he snapped at some points. He transferred me, but in fact the fight did not bring him anything. I probably did more damage: I kicked his body, and there were quite a lot of other hits. Overall, I didn’t feel at all that he himself believed in his victory.

— His two best episodes were an attempt at a guillotine in the first round and a hit one and a half minutes before the end of the second…

“It wasn’t a guillotine, he hugged my head and my head got stuck there.” There was no suffocation as such. It’s just that it’s not always possible to quickly get out of a grip in this particular position. But it didn’t cause any damage, it was located below, and in the end I got out. His hit during the battle was not strong. But when I hit him with a backfist, he staggered; in principle, I had more hits, judging by the statistics. And there was a moment in the first round when he grabbed the net and didn’t let me do a flip. In this case, the referee had to either stop the fight and stand up, or deduct a point from him. Because this is a violation that affects the course of the fight.

— What do you think about the possibility of filing a protest?

— While I’m on my way to the hotel. Naturally, I will not be doing this myself personally. I have a team for this, managers and lawyers who will work on this. I can say that I received great support from everyone. I didn’t hear a single critical word addressed to me. As far as I feel, everything is on my side. We’ll see what happens next.

– What did Dana White tell you?

– He said that the judges [поимели] such a decision,” the Match TV website quotes Volkov as saying.

Live broadcasts of mixed martial arts tournaments can be seen on the Match TV and Match! Fighter”, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.