Alexander Volkanovski: Mauricio Ruffy 'just picks up things straight away' - MMA Junkie
Alexander Volkanovski put Mauricio Ruffy through the wringer for UFC 331.
Ruffy (14-2 MMA, 5-1 UFC) takes on Arman Tsarukyan (23-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC) in Saturday's five-round co-main event at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Their pivotal lightweight clash is expected to be a No. 1 contender bout.
Ruffy recently left Fighting Nerds to join UFC featherweight champion Volkanovski's camp in Australia. Volkanovski has diligently been working on Volkanovski's takedown defense.
"He's just an athlete. He just picks up things straight away," Volkanovski said of Ruffy on the UFC 331 Countdown. "And just get repetition when he's not even thinking, when he's tired, these things are automatically happening. We want to get that to a point where it feels like he's reacting with muscle memory. There are so many athletes here that have my sort of style, takedown defense. That's how we all are here – never giving up on any little position.
"A lot of wrestlers will come in and they're not used to scrambling ability from the guys here and they just get tired like that. It's going to be very important with guys like Arman, probably one of the best wrestlers in the UFC, but if you're going for shots and you know that's your only chance to grab a hold of him and that's not happening, and all of a sudden you've got Ruffy in your face, that's a big, big, big problem to have."
Tsarukyan is a sizable favorite over Ruffy, who will get a big step up in competition after back-to-back first-round TKOs of Rafael Fiziev and Michael Chandler.
