T.J. Dillashaw believes Movsar Evloev knew he wouldn't beat Alexander Volkanovski early in their fight.
Featherweight champion Volkanovski (29-4 MMA, 16-3 UFC) finished Evloev (20-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) by second-round TKO in the UFC 333 main event at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. Dillashaw believes Volkanovski broke Evloev's will when he kept popping back up from his takedown attempts. Volkanovski eventually tagged Evloev with a big straight left, which spelled the beginning of the end.
"I couldn't believe he wasn't more of a favorite," Dillashaw said of Volkanovski on the "JAXXON PODCAST." "He wasn't an underdog, but it was like almost close. I was like, 'No f*cking way.' I put some good money on Volk, and I won. I mean, it went down how I thought it was going
to go down. Volk is just too calculated. He does a really good job of moving his feet, which is going to be hard for the takedowns to come. Yes, we saw some come, but again, bounces right back to his feet. We've seen that (Islam) Makhachev had trouble holding him down. So how is Evloev going to hold him down?
"I knew he's going to get back to his feet, calculate his shots, and when the turning of the tide really happened – because Round 1, it was good, it was close. But in Round 2, when Volk reversed him off that takedown, he was going to take him down to reach back almost like a switch and ended up on top. As soon as that happened, you just seen, like, all of the thought process of Evloev that he was going to win just drained from him. After that, he got hit with some big shots and kind of folded because it wasn't like he was super hurt. He just kind of gave up and covered. I would have been fighting back for the life of me to try to get that belt, but after he got reversed, in my opinion, is like, 'F*ck, Volk's too good for me.'"
Evloev was all class in defeat, admitting that it was a "terrible" performance from him.
"I think he's just mentally checked out knowing he's not going to win the fight," Dillashaw said of Evloev. "To an extent, he did (give up). In my opinion, I don't know. This is just my opinion, guys: You're going to have to kill me and hit me with a baseball bat to get me out of there to where I would never just cover up and be like, 'All right, I'm going to take it.' But it happens."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Ex-UFC champ: Movsar Evloev 'kind of gave up' vs. Alexander Volkanovski
