Alexander Volkov had a lot of obstacles heading into his main event fight against Tom Aspinall at UFC London. There were many issues for the Russian and the fight was filled with obstacles.

There were obvious issues with Russia but Alexander Volkov also faced some health issues. The training camp for UFC London was tough as he wasn't able to train as much as he wanted to.

“The case is that a month and a half before the fight, I got COVID a second time,” Volkov explained at UFC London media day via MMAFighting. “So to prepare myself, I needed a full camp and I couldn’t spare even a week without the preparation with a full time, the sparring and everything.

“We’re very grateful to the UFC that they’re trying to help us get to the fight earlier but I couldn’t. We were quite sure that we would be able to get here. It turned out to be OK.”

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Travel was a concern as well for Alexander Volkov. Getting to UFC London should have been simple but the flight from Russia to England was very complicated.

“It was a concern for me, too,” Volkov said about getting to UFC London. “We were afraid we wouldn’t be able to pass Russian customs [or] any other customs because as normal people we have no idea what’s happening to the customs. Everyday comes new laws and stuff.

“The only difference for me right now was that I flew almost for a day. Before it was four hours [to travel to London]. Usually, I would be here in four hours but I spent in the flight the same time that I would go to the U.S. and back.”