Weidman pinpoints Evloev's 'lazy' mat return as the turning point in Volkanovski's UFC 333 stoppage

Chris Weidman has identified a single wrestling mistake by Movsar Evloev as the moment Alexander Volkanovski seized control of their UFC 333 featherweight title fight, which ended in a second-round stoppage at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.

Evloev (20-1) had Volkanovski (29-4) pinned against the Octagon fence in the second round and attempted to drag the champion to the mat. Rather than going hip-to-hip, Evloev pulled Volkanovski on top of him — a choice Weidman described as fundamentally flawed.

“When you have someone’s back and have to mat return, you never pull them on top of you,” Weidman said on the Deep Waters podcast. “It’s kind of like a lazy way of bringing someone down. It creates a scramble with the other guy’s hips high, turn in, and that’s what Volk did. I thought that was a red flag with him going for that mat return… You could just go hip to hip and just bring him down; there’s no risk. It’s more labor.”

With his hips high and his body already turning, Volkanovski was able to reverse the position and land in top control. From there, the champion unloaded heavy ground strikes to force the stoppage late in the second round and retain his featherweight title.

Weidman, a former UFC middleweight champion with a decorated wrestling background, was joined on the podcast by Dustin Poirier and Jorge Masvidal. When host Din Thomas suggested the failed mat return may have been the decisive moment of the entire contest, all three fighters agreed.

The analysis underlines how a technical detail — the angle of a takedown attempt — can alter the outcome of a championship fight. Evloev had entered UFC 333 unbeaten in the UFC and was widely regarded as one of the most credible challengers Volkanovski had faced, making the margin between the two men all the narrower.