Evloev's chain wrestling is the puzzle Volkanovski has never faced at UFC 333
“I'll finish him inside the five rounds for sure.”
Movsar Evloev has never lost — but he's never finished a UFC fight either. His camp just drilled three submissions for Alexander Volkanovski, and the champ promises a finish of his own. The UFC 333 main event is the most dangerous grappling puzzle of Volkanovski's reign.
Alexander Volkanovski has defended his featherweight title six times. He's beaten almost everyone the division threw at him. Saturday night in Abu Dhabi, he faces the one guy nobody has beaten: Movsar Evloev.
Evloev is 20-0. Ten of those wins came in the UFC. Every single one went to the judges.
That stat tells you everything and nothing. Evloev doesn't stall — ask Eugene Bareman, the man coaching Volkanovski for this fight. He calls Evloev's grappling "death by a thousand punches." No holding position. No resting. Just constant, blunt-force work from top control, punch after punch after punch, the way Islam Makhachev and Khabib Nurmagomedov grind — except Evloev never stops hitting. Bareman calls it "a brilliant strategy," which is coach-speak for: this is a nightmare matchup.
And here's the part that should worry the champion: Evloev hasn't finished anyone since 2018, back when he was defending his M-1 bantamweight belt. His camp just drilled three signature submissions specifically for Volkanovski — a kimura, an arm-triangle, and a third choke his own team refuses to name. The one they "worked on the most," per his camp, is the one nobody has seen.
The technical picture comes straight from the UFC's own Coach Conversation breakdown: this fight is Evloev's chain wrestling — he doesn't shoot once, he shoots in waves, transitioning through failed attempts and sticking to opponents like glue — against Volkanovski's proactive wrestling defense and the footwork that forces wrestlers to reset their entries.
Volkanovski, naturally, isn't blinking. "I'll finish him inside the five rounds for sure," he told MMA Junkie at an Abu Dhabi fan event. His logic: nobody outgrapples him for 25 minutes.
But Evloev has outgrappled ten UFC opponents, all by decision, and this Saturday he's hunting his first UFC finish — with a secret third choke in his pocket.
UFC 333 goes down Saturday, October 24 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, streaming on Paramount+. The co-main is no small thing either: bantamweight king Petr Yan rematches Merab Dvalishvili for the third time. Two title fights, one card, zero excuses to miss it.
