Volkanovski finished the fight at 4:54 of the second round, landing a right hand followed by ground-and-pound that forced the referee to call off the bout with six seconds remaining in the round. The victory came before a jubilant crowd at the Etihad Arena.
Evloev, who entered the fight undefeated, was gracious in defeat. "Like I said, Alex is a great champion, and it was an honour to share the cage with him," he said after the loss.
Volkanovski indicated he intends to continue fighting as long as he avoids significant damage. "I'm choosing to do [fight]; I don't have to. I said if I didn't take too much damage, we will probably keep going. So maybe we keep going," he said.
In the co-main event, Petr Yan defended his UFC bantamweight title by unanimous decision over Merab Dvalishvili, winning on all three scorecards 48-47. Yan employed a relentless pace and a mix of wrestling and dirty boxing to win the rubber match in their trilogy.
Other main-card results included England's Lone'er Kavanagh stopping Ramazan Temirov via TKO in the first round of their flyweight bout, Russia's Alexander Volkov earning a unanimous decision over Rizvan Kuniev at heavyweight, and Aaron Pico knocking out Losene Keita in just over a minute in featherweight action.