Islam Makhachev’s recent victory over Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284 has been met with controversy. Makhachev was accused of using IVs to rehydrate after his weight cut. These allegations were first made by Dan Hooker, a teammate of Volkanovski.
More recently, UFC veteran Chael Sonnen has shed some light on the situation.
Sonnen spoke to Craig Jones. Jones was tapped to be Volkanovski’s BJJ coach ahead of clash with Brian Ortega and is now doing BJJ work for Volkanovski camp as needed.
Jones claimed that the news of Makhachev’s IV use spread quickly throughout Volkanovski’s team and substantially soured the atmosphere.
Sonnen said the following on his channel:
“The news (of Islam Makhachev receiving an IV) spread around Volkanovski’s team instantly. All of a sudden the mood changed. All of a sudden they weren’t as friendly with Islam’s team, but they didn’t say why. Coincidentally, it turned out to be Dan Hooker’s birthday, so everybody went out to celebrate. Through the course of celebration, Hooker decided to stay quiet on this and brought it out to the world.”
Chael Sonnen then went on to talk about Jones’ possible motivations for making such a statement. About a possible rematch, Sonnen stated:
“I appreciate that Craig shared that. I’ve always liked Dan Hooker, I like him more now. He backed his guy up. ”
“Now, I don’t think Islam did anything wrong, but I sure think you can make it look like he did. And you can leverage that into something.”
With Yair Rodriguez now the interim champion at 145 lbs after beating Josh Emmet, Alexander Volkanovski will likely have to face him in a title unification bout.
However, given the close nature of Volkanovski’s previous bout with Makhachev, a rematch between the two is also a possibility. Both have expressed interest in each other, but no dates have been confirmed yet.