Alexander Volkanovski wants to see UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria’s cardio tested.

Topuria (17-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) continued his dominant run when he knocked out Charles Oliveira to claim the vacant lightweight title in Saturday’s UFC 317 headliner at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Volkanovski (27-5 MMA, 14-4 UFC), who saw his first featherweight title reign come to an end at the hands of Topuria by knockout at UFC 298 in February 2024, urges fighters to try and grapple “El Matador,” and push him to unchartered waters.

“Wrestle the bloke, mate,” Volkanovski said of Topuria on the FLAGRANT podcast. “You want to see what’s going to happen with his gas tank. So even with Ilia, great fighter, like even a lot of the things he does, like I’m sure a lot of it’s well trained, and then he’s got so many good instincts as well.”

Despite Oliveira lasting less than three minutes with Topuria, Volkanovski noticed the lone grappling exchange in the fight having an effect on Topuria, and said pushing him further down that path is the way to go.

“We want to see the gas tank, see what happens there because I thought Charles when he was taking him down, and forcing the wrestle and the grapple, I felt like it was starting to wear on him a little bit,” Volkanovski added. “So even when he sort of ended up on top when they grappled, I don’t know if you remember, Ilia gets up and then starts kicking him, didn’t let him up.

“He waited like, I’m going to wait 30 seconds, kick his legs, get my breath back because that probably took a little bit out of him, which I thought was clever. You want to catch him coming in because he wants to commit as well, but there’s that danger of him landing as well.”

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Alexander Volkanovski on how to beat Ilia Topuria: ‘Wrestle the bloke’