Volkanovski compared his first fight against Makhachev to a game of chess

“You could see the smile on my face during the fight — I was enjoying it. Most people would panic in such a situation, but I felt what he was going to do. And I have to give Islam credit — that guy still put me in a difficult position... Sometimes it seemed to me that I had stopped him, and he barely realized it. So I changed my strategy and kept moving. It was like a high-level chess match,” Volkanovski said, as reported by Sportskeeda.