With the recent unfortunate events in Bellator, MMA veteran and former heavyweight champ Alexander Volkov reveals that he’s somehow glad that he’s not under the promotion anymore.
Volkov, who has a record of 25-6, was one of the fighters under Bellator back in 2012. The 27-year-old had a short stint in the promotion and had a total of 6-3 bouts. Unfortunately, Volkov was defeated by Tony Johnson and Cheick Kongo consecutively, which led him to be released by the promotion.
After he was released by Bellator, Volkov immediately went back inside the cage to fight Denis Smoldarev and won the M-1 Global heavyweight title by 
triangle-choke.
“Everything went as planned. I know that during the first couple of rounds, there’d be a lot of wrestling. It was predictable and what I’d planned for the fight. I trained a lot of submissions off my back, and one of them went as we expected it. I am happy that the fight went as planned,” Volkov said during a recent interview with MMAjunkie.
Volkov also revealed that he is happy with where he is right as of the moment. But now that plenty of MMA fighters are facing their losses and others landing a contract with the UFC like Marcin Tybura and Damian Grabowski, what should Volkov prepare for next?
“I don’t know who’s next since it’s for M-1 to decide. For my career, I would personally want a powerful guy with a good record. For my last fight, I wanted Smoldarev since he’s in very good shape and is one of the most impressive heavyweights in Europe. He has a great future. He’s really good. I don’t want the stain of fighting someone who’s weak. For my career, it’s best to face the strongest opponents,” Volkov revealed.
Volkov also said that he is hoping that he’ll be able to fight again this coming April and defend his title against a credible contender, then he has the option to stay with M-1 or discuss his options with other MMA promotion companies. He also revealed that he doesn’t mind joining the UFC as an M-1 titleholder and show the other MMA fighters that there are actually great fighters in Russian promotions such as M-1.
However, it looks like he is open to all other promotions except Bellator.
“I do wish to go to another organization as the champion, though maybe not Bellator,” he said.
The main reason why he doesn’t want to consider other promotion companies but Bellator is simply because of its way on showcasing its MMA fighters. Volkov said that Bellator has forced its veteran and well-ranked fighters to the sidelines.
“It would be embarrassing to be part of some of their recent events. I’ve heard someone say it’s OK to have fun fights, but it’s not OK to have them as a main event. Having two freak fights as main and co-main event is not good for the promotion. The UFC has had James Toney vs. Randy Couture. But that was a different time, and it wasn’t the main event,” he added.
