Alex Volkanovski reveals USADA woke him up the night before UFC 251

UFC featherweight champion Alex Volkanovski says that USADA woke him up the night before his UFC 251 main event against Max Holloway.

Volkanovski defended his title via split decision in a highly-competitive battle between two of the best featherweights in the game. The judges scored the bout 47-48, 48-47, and 48-47 in favor of Volkanovski, allowing the champ to retain his title. Although it was not his best performance in the Octagon, the win improved Volkanovski’s career record to 22-1, including a 19-fight win steak a perfect 9-0 mark in the UFC.

Following the event, Volkanovski spoke to the media and made an interesting comment about his sleep schedule. According to the champ, he was awoken the night before the fight by USADA to do a drug test.

Alex Volkanovski says USADA woke him up last night #UFCFightIsland #UFC251 pic.twitter.com/DfV0X4KDKF

— Helen Yee (@HelenYeeSports) July 12, 2020

“Obviously we have to be up (early), I was getting up at like 2:30 or 3 o’clock, that’s what I wanted to do. So I was getting to sleep at 7, then at 9 or 10 o’clock, they decided to wake me up to do a USADA test. So I don’t know what happened with that,” Volkanovski said.

“I’m not making excuses, but there were a few things that I wasn’t really happy with.”

The fighters were on an odd sleeping schedule because the majority of the fights took place in the wee hours of the morning in Abu Dhabi time due to the pay-per-view being shown back home in North America at a normal time. The UFC is planning on doing the same thing for the next three events on Fight Island, so the fighters need to be prepared to be fighting very early in the morning. Although Volkanovski got the job done, perhaps being awoken in the middle of the night by USADA the night before the fight didn’t help.

What did you think about the performance Alex Volkanovski had against Max Holloway?