Alexander Volkanovski (right) of Australia punches Jung Chan-sung of South Korea in their UFC featherweight championship fight during the UFC 273 event on April 9, 2022 in Jacksonville, Florida. Photo: VCG

Alexander Volkanovski put the fight world on notice with his victory over "The Korean Zombie" Jung Chan-sung  at UFC 273 last weekend.

The Australian becomes only the fifth fighter to start his UFC career with an 11-0 undefeated record, and joins some illustrious company in doing so.

The other four fighters? Anderson Silva, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Royce Gracie and Kamaru Usmaan.

While Volkanovski marched on, ­Korean Zombie almost had to be ­carried out and admitted in his post-match press duties that he is considering retiring. For the Korean it was a second title shot some 2,000 days after his first and becoming UFC champion was not meant to be.

It was some beating he took from the 35-year-old before referee Herb Dean stopped the fight.

Feeling bad

Volkanovski even asked his opponent if he wanted to keep going, with the footage going viral.

"I was so good I started feeling a little bad. I asked, 'Are you alright? Do you want to keep doing this?'" the featherweight champ said.

"That just shows how good I was, to have guys like that asking for it," Volkanovski told the media in the post-fight conference.

"After the third, I didn't think he should go, he looked defeated. A lot of those shots were big shots."

"I started feeling bad. He was talking about retiring, I felt bad. What I did to him in front of his wife," Volkanovski said, after the 37-year-old Korean and his wife were both in tears. "I'm looking at them and I'm feeling bad."

As time passed since the win, Volkanovski remained in a similar mood, delighted with his performance but worried for his opponent and the decision to carry on.

"I was obviously happy with the finish," the Australian told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour podcast.

"I wanted it a little bit earlier, but we ended up getting it. He was tough, man. He ate some shots, he really did. Obviously he lived up to that Zombie name. My hands were hurting. I remember landing jabs and punches and my hands were hurting, that's how clean they were hitting. They were hitting flush, and he would be wobbled and rocked and just come straight back to it, and I'd just do it again.

"I probably rocked him like five, six times in there, maybe more. By the end of it, I'm glad Herb stopped it, because I felt like he definitely had enough. I think he was ready. He sort of knew it was over. He was defeated already, let's get him back home to the family healthy.

"In the third round, I wanted to get that finish. I was very close, maybe a couple seconds - he did well, he's tough, where I was just about to get the finish and he rolled a little bit more and then just held out for when that buzzer went. But seeing him in the corner, he was sitting on the ground, he was done. Like I said, he was defeated. Even when he got up and was playing with his eye and was even wobbling to the center, I was [wondering] whether it's legit, which means it's over anyway, or was it a sign to the ref and the commission like, 'I'm done.' Was that him asking for [the fight to be stopped]. That's sort of what I felt, so I just said to him, 'Mate, are you sure you want to keep doing this?' I don't know if he understood me, but he's like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' and I'm like, 'Are you sure? Alright.'

'Just stop it'

"I think Herb knew where it was at, because I was like, come on, just stop it. I even said it a few times. So he was just like I'll give him one last little chance but as soon as he eats a couple, he was gonna call it. So a lot of people knew it was done. Sometimes people being so tough, it's worse for their own good. You don't want to see them taking damage, especially where you could see he wasn't really landing flush. Every time he did land, I saw them coming. I saw pretty much everything coming. Everyone knew it was pretty much over so I'm glad he stopped it."

"It's tough. You've got to remember what the MMA fighters are like as well," Volkanovski added. "You take an opportunity away from them and they all feel like it's quitting, you quitting for them. I think that's what they worry about. Maybe they worry, 'I think my student is gonna be more angry with me if I stop it than they would by me taking care of them,' which they shouldn't care, but at the same time they're weighing their options. They're like, 'He's gonna be very unhappy, why'd you do it, why didn't you let me go out on my shield?' That type of stuff. I think it's that ego and that type of mentality a lot of mixed martial artists have. But again, it shouldn't really matter. You should just look after your [fighter]. But in the heat of the moment, he was still in it. It wasn't like he was literally out of it, but he was definitely defeated. But it wasn't long before the ref stopped it, so it was alright."

It was alright, but more so for Volkanovski who has to decide what come next.

"We want to move up," he said of plans to step up a weight. "I plan on taking out this division for a long time. It needs to sort itself out, but there's no point fighting another guy for the sake of it," he said.

He means business too, starting with a title fight with lightweight champ Charles Oliveira - and a chance to join another five-man shortlist of UFC history makers, the double-weight champions.

"I want to go straight to the title. If it's not straight away if I get a No.1 contender or the Max Holloway Trilogy and I wipe another guy off, you can't deny me my double chance status," he said. "They've done it for a lot less, it's definitely deserving."