Movsar Evloev is walking away from his UFC London fight against Lerone Murphy the winner, but did he win impressively enough to lock up a featherweight title shot against Alexander Volkanovski?
The Evloev vs. Murphy main event won’t go down in anyone’s history books as a particularly thrilling bout, or even as a solid win for Evloev, who is used to dominating his opponents more thoroughly. Instead, you have the majority of media that watched the fight calling it a draw, with some even giving the bout to Murphy.
But in the end only the three judges cageside matter, and they gave Evloev the majority decision win, 48–46, 48–46, and 47–47.
During the post-fight press conference, UFC CEO Dana White dismissed the controversy surrounding the scorecards and said Evloev was ‘possibly’ next for a title shot. That’s high praise in Evloev’s opinion.
“Thank you, Uncle Dana, for saying this,” he said. “Because before you only hate me, like saying hate to me. But still, it’s just potential. We’ll see. I’m happy. I’m ready for the title or just give me another debut guy.”
Evloev made it clear that he was ready to turn around quickly to make a title fight — or any fight for that matter — happen.
“I wasted a lot of time, had too many issues,” he said. “It’s better if I fight as early as possible. May would be good. Maybe June, something like that.”
The Russian fighter seemed prepared to be denied a title again despite being on a 10 fight UFC win streak, and suggested he’d accept whatever happened as the will of God.
“Even if there’s more issues and more trouble, I would still take that on,” he said of his long trek to a title shot. “It’d still be worth it because no matter what happens to us, it all happens by the will of the Almighty, and the Almighty never tests us with something that we cannot withstand. So yes, it was worth it.”
The one thing that might upset Movsar was Jean Silva jumping him in line. Silva was in London to watch the fight and has repeatedly said the UFC planned on signing him to a featherweight title fight.
“He’s just lying,” Evloev said when asked about that, but you could see his eye twitch in anger at the possibility.
The muddled win in a ho-hum main event did little to improve Evloev’s position, other than bulk up his crazy win streak stat. In today’s UFC (especially at featherweight) the promotion clearly wants exciting fights. So don’t be surprised if we do see Jean Silva surf his way into a title shot against Alexander Volkanovski, despite being 1-1 over his last two.
