Ilia Topuria’s Next Fight: Poirier Or Oliveira

Ilia Topuria’s move up to lightweight has raised question marks over his next steps. 

Topuria vacated his UFC Featherweight Title as Alexander Volkanovski will fight Diego Lopez at UFC 314 for the vacant title. Tuporia secured the belt after knocking out Volkanovski At UFC 298. He gave Volkanovski his first stoppage defeat in the weight class as the Australian’s four-year reign as champion ended. There were talks over a rematch, but it never happened. Topuria would then go on to defend his belt against Max Holloway for the first time. He also gave Holloway the first stoppage defeat of his career after knocking him out at UFC 308. Topuria’s decision to move up has been due to his insistence on securing a fight with Islam Makhachev. 

“Topuria felt like he’s done all that he can in that division and he feels like he cemented his legacy and his body cannot make the weight anymore. So Topuria will be moving up to 155lb, and will be vacating the featherweight title. So the way that this works is as soon as the first punch was thrown in this fight, the title will be vacant and we’ll announce what Topuria’s next fight will be when it gets done,” Dana White said 

“I just found out it was Lopes not that long ago. We always knew it was going to be April for the belt, we just weren’t exactly sure who. Obviously, that throws questions … What’s happened with Ilia? Is he having a break? Is he moving up? I still don’t know the answer to that. … He obviously was talking about moving up. We originally thought it was going to be Ilia or Lopes. I was preparing for Ilia because we did the face-off,” Volkanovski stated

What’s Next?

Makhachev is the current UFC Lightweight Champion, who defended his title against Dustin Poirier in his last fight. Makhachev initially ruled out the fight after saying he has given small fighters too many chances. His comments were in reference to Volkanovski moving up twice to face him, as Islam beat him on both occasions. Makhachev also has his ambitions of getting a belt in another weight class. Islam is reluctant to fight the UFC Welterweight Champion Belal Muhammad since they are friends and have trained together. 

That means Islam may target a move up to middleweight to face the current UFC middleweight Champion, Dricus Du Plessis. Alternatively, Belal could move up to middleweight, vacating the welterweight title and giving Islam an opportunity to fight for it. Makhachev’s manager, Rizvan Magomedov, is not keen on seeing Topuria fight his man. He has called on Topuria to prove himself as a lightweight. He suggested possible fights against Dustin Poirier and Charles Oliveira, two men Islam has already beaten. If Topuria comes through those fights, he will have more credibility in trying to secure an Islam fight.

“Topuria vs Dustin/Charles contender fight, to prove he’s legit lightweight. So we don’t have to defeat another ‘small featherweight. We need big fight that make sense for everyone. We already gave chances to featherweight champ that was reigning for long time,” Rizvan Magomedov said 

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