Rising Australian UFC featherweight star Alexander Volkanovski is confident of claiming his biggest scalp yet this weekend and moving on to a world title shot in the new year.
Volkanovski, who has an 18-1 MMA record and hasn';t lost for over five years, will face his hardest test in American Chad Mendes on UFC 232 in Las Vegas on Sunday (AEST).
The only MMA losses on the 33-year-old Californian's log are against former champions in Conor McGregor, Frankie Edgar and Jose Aldo (twice).
He is ranked fifth, five places above the 30-year-old New South Welshman. . .
But Volkanovski, who has won 15 straight, including his first five UFC fights, is convinced he will win and get a world title shot in 2019.
"Chad Mendes is one of the best in the featherweight division, he's only lost to the greats, but I think his time has come. Now it's my time,'" Volkanovski told AAP.
"This is massive for me. This is really going to be the coming out party for me.
"After this, I'm going to be very well known around the world.
"I'm expecting to go out there and put Chad Mendes away in a wild fashion.
"My name is going to be thrown out there for a title contention, I honestly believe that."
Neither Volkanovski or Australian featherweight Megan Anderson, who fights fifth-rated bantamweight Cat Zingano on the same show, are fussed about the late move for the promotion headlined by the light heavyweight title bout between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson.
An abnormality in a pre-fight drug test collected from Jones forced the switch from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.
"I've got some friends and family that are here and it's going to cost them money to do all of this, so it's a pain in the arse that way,"' Volkanovski said.
"I'm going to pay a lot more tax in California now but I've got a fight to do ... either way, I'm not going to worry about it too much."
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