Alexander Volkanovski is currently recognized as one of the best champions in the UFC currently. The featherweight has plenty of options ahead of him with title defenses at featherweight and even some super-fights at lightweight.

One of his coaches, Eugene Bareman, recently spoke out on who would be the toughest challenge for the UFC featherweight champion. Looking at the options at lightweight, Bareman sees the unofficial lightweight champion as the biggest challenge.

“Definitely Oliveira’sthe more difficult matchup in my opinion,” Bareman told Submission Radio. “Again, it just depends. Oliveira has a more well-rounded skillset, so there’s more to deal with. I mean, Islam’s got good stand-up, but that just depends on who you are looking in, I guess. But yeah, I just think Oliveira would be a more well-rounded skill set for Volk to deal with.

“Whereas Islam, perhaps we could narrow a couple of things down and concentrate on those few things. Which is easier said than done, because just like in much the fashion of Khabib, Islam excels. He may only do one or two aspects of the sport really, really well, but he does them at the highest level. So, that’s the difficulty.”

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Alexander Volkanovski has talked about a move to lightweight in the past once he's cleaned out the featherweight division. Eugene Bareman sees the UFC champion doing very well despite his shorter stature at lightweight.

“Every single person, doesn’t matter who you are, what experience you have, he grabs you, and you feel something different,” Bareman said. “It’s a different feeling from anything that I’ve ever felt from someone of that stature, and I think the lightweight guys still feel that. Look, I got middleweights and light heavyweights that feel it.

“They’re like, ‘Fucking hell.’ They’re really surprised when Alex grabs them, and you’re talking about guys like two or three divisions up from him. Lightweight’s only one division above him. So, I think you’d see the same Alex, just that strength and that raw (physicality) that he brings.”