Nate Landwehr Weighs in on Volkanovski vs. Rodriguez

There’s not long left to wait before the highly-anticipated match between MMA superstars Alexander Volkanovski and Yair Rodriguez. Set to take place at UFC 290, the featherweight title bout is likely to be one of the highlights of the year for MMA fans – Australian champion Volkanovski will be hoping to retain his belts in this unification contest, whilst challenger Rodriguez is looking to pen his name in the history books by scoring an unexpected upset in the octagon.

As the countdown to the fight continues unabated, another UFC featherweight fighter has offered a few words of opinion regarding July’s headline fight. Before his fight at UFC 289, Nate Landwehr – otherwise known as ‘the train’ – sat down with a reporter representing Sportsskeeda MMA for an exclusive interview. It was only a brief chat, lasting just ten minutes, but the fighter's candid opinions have nevertheless reverberated around the internet ever since.

What Did He Say?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZAbaMQ58Zo&t=4s

The upcoming unification bout between Volkanovski and Rodriguez was one of the hottest topics discussed on the night. Landwehr’s view is that the fight may not be a ‘walk in the park’ for Alexander Volkanovski as many are expecting; the featherweight dubbed his opponent a ‘wild cat’ and said that he believes the Mexican challenger’s dynamic striking style could pose a genuine threat to the champion. To quote the star:

"I mean, it's the fight game. Anything can happen. [Yair Rodriguez is] real tricky. He got a little razzle-dazzle... I was talking with my boxing coach, a tame cat is easy. A wild cat is a little bit more difficult to prepare for and Yair got that wild cat about him. So, we're gonna see.”

The Bookmakers Opinion

How much stock should we put in Landwehr’s opinions? That’s a tough question – the bookmakers still have Volkanovski prices as a heavy favourite at 2/9, which is only marginally lower than his opening price of 1/5. As for the challenger, the UFC odds already posted have him at 13/4, which is marginally better than his initial price of 33/10. Of course, we are likely to see significant movement in these prices between now and Saturday 8th of July when the fight is scheduled to take place.

Vokanovski vs Rodriguez: Tale of the Tape

Before UFC 290, Alexander Volkanovski scored 25 victories during his professional career. Twelve of those wins resulted from knockouts, with another three coming by way of submission. The Australian fighter has only lost two fights during this time and has zero draws to report on. His opponent, Yair Rodriguez, is a less experienced fighter with 15 wins (including five knockouts and four submissions) alongside three losses and zero draws.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssMzanRo5W0

These statistics indicate that the champion has a notable power advantage over the challenger; this is suggested by his 48% knockout percentage in contrast to the 33% rating of Mexican fighter Rodriguez. Whilst Vokanovski is the older of the two men by four years, he’s still only 34 years of age. Meanwhile, Rodriguez has a five-inch height advantage over Volkanovski, but this does not translate into an advantage in reach as the latter is recorded as having a one-inch advantage in this all-important area.

Despite Volkanovski being the older and more experienced fighter of the pair, Rodriguez has been fighting professionally for slightly longer than his opponent. This translates into a significant gap in the number of professional rounds fought between the two fighters, with Rodriguez recording just 47 rounds in contrast to 76 by Volkanovski.

Recent Fight Records

Featherweight champion Volkanovski has won four out of his last five professional bouts, but only one of those victories resulted from a stoppage with the remaining three going to the judges. His single loss during this period was a lightweight championship battle against Islam Makhachev which took place at UFC 284 on the 11th of February 2023. That right resulted in a unanimous decision, just as in his previous matchup against Max Holloway at UFC 276. Before that, Volkanovski had beaten Chan Sung Jung at UFC 273 with a fourth-round knockout victory at Florida’s VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on 9th April 2022.

Challenger Yair Rodriguez has scored three victories during his last five fights including a single stoppage and two decision-based wins. He’ll go into UFC 290 on the back of his stunning defeat of Josh Emmett which took place in Western Australia on the 11th of February 2023. His previous fight against Brian Ortega at a UFC Fight Night on 16th July 2022 also ended in victory with Yair delivering a crushing first-round knockout at the UBS Arena in Long Island, New York. It’s not all smooth sailing, however, as his previous fight against Max Holloway at UFC Vegas 42 resulted in a unanimous decision loss.

As we can see, both fighters have recorded relatively good results in recent times but Volkanovski has been far more active than his opponent. Both fighters last entered the Octagon four months ago, but look back a little further and a clear difference begins to show: Volkanovski’s last five fights took place during the past 35 months a- much lower than the 44 months taken by Rodriguez.

UFC 290 Main Card

• Alexander Volkanovski (C) vs Yair Rodriguez (IC) (featherweight title)

• Brandon Moreno (C) vs Alexandre Pantoja (flyweight title)

• Robert Whittaker vs Dricus Du Plessis (middleweight)

• Jalin Turner vs Dan Hooker (lightweight)

• Bo Nickal vs Tresean Gore (middleweight)

Prelims

• Robbie Lawler vs Niko Price (welterweight)

• Sean Brady vs Jack Della Maddalena (welterweight)

• Yazmin Jauregui vs Denise Gomes (women’s strawweight)

• Jimmy Crute vs Alonzo Menifield (light-heavyweight)

Early Prelims

• Vitor Petrino vs Marcin Prachnio (light-heavyweight)

• Christian Rodriguez vs Cameron Saaiman (bantamweight)

• Shannon Ross vs Jesus Aguilar (flyweight)

• Kamuela Kirk vs Esteban Ribovics (lightweight)