Topuria Drops A Hint Over His Return

UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria has offered an encouraging timeline for his return.

Topuria took a break from the UFC to deal with personal issues following his stoppage win over Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 in July 2025 to secure the vacant lightweight belt. While the division moved forward with an interim title fight between Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett, Topuria took to social media to clarify that his hiatus will wrap up much sooner than initially feared. The champion confirmed he expects to be back in the Octagon by April or May.

“April-June. The winner between Paddy and Justin,” Topuria said 

Topuria could then face the winner of the Gaethje vs. Pimblett interim title bout on January 24. Ilia has also reiterated his desire to move up to welterweight to challenge the newly-crowned champion Islam Makhachev for a chance to become the first-ever three-division champion.

However, Makhachev has already drawn a hard line for that potential showdown. The Dagestani champion insisted that any meeting with Topuria would have to take place at 170 pounds, as he has no intention of returning to the weight cut of the lightweight division. 

The Future

“For what? I had the belt at lightweight. No one beat me there. I just left the belt and moved up. For what? for a belt? That’s not interesting to me. If he wants to move up, then welcome. He can because he has nothing to lose by moving up. If he loses, he goes back down to lightweight, and that’s it. He’ll defend his belt there.

“I’ve already been the lightweight champion, and I’m definitely not going back down. And for him, I’ll repeat: He doesn’t lose anything by moving up. For me, it wouldn’t make sense to call out someone from a lower weight who just became champion. He hasn’t proven anything in lightweight yet. He’s got a lot of work to do there. Arman Tsarukyan is calling him out everyday, asking to fight,” Islam stated

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