Ilia Topuria has threatened to overlook BMF title holder Max Holloway for his first UFC featherweight title defense and has an alternative in mind.
Following his enormous KO victory over Justin Gaethje at the weekend, Max Holloway and featherweight champion Ilia Topuria have been going back-and-forth on social media with ‘El Matador’ threatening that he already has a replacement opponent lined up.
Max Holloway fires back and Ilia Topuria over title shot comments
On Wednesday’s episode of The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, Ilia Topuria made headlines when he suggested that he’d only be willing to fight Max Holloway if ‘Blessed’ also put up his shiny new silver-plated BMF belt.
“He’s got that BMF belt so I’m excited to add that belt to my legacy too… Without the BMF belt, I don’t want him at all… He’s been saying ‘right now I have a lot of options’, he doesn’t have any options. I’m the champion right now, I choose the date, I choose the place. Whenever I want him, he has to be ready.”
Holloway responded to the conditional offer by arguing “That’s not very BMF, that’s kind of un-BMF, a BMF fights whatever, whoever, whenever…That’s not a tone of a [real] BMF.”
“Last time I checked, when I was your age, I already had title defenses, buddy. So it looks like you’ve still got some catching up to do.”
Ilia Topuria threatens to give UFC featherweight title shot to Brian Ortega
It appears that this statement from Holloway has decidedly gotten under the skin of ‘El Matador’, who responded on social media by suggesting that he could instead offer the featherweight title shot to Brian ‘T-City’ Ortega.
“You will have a worthy defeat against a champion who will be remembered for eternity. I decide who, when, and where. If you don’t like the terms I’m sure Ortega will oblige.”
Brian Ortega is currently the #3 ranked featherweight in the world after defeating Yair Rodriguez via third-round submission at UFC Fight Night Mexico City back in February 2024.
Topuria himself stated that he’d consider facing Ortega over Holloway since he “no longer fights for money but for legacy,” before stating that his goal is now to become the first UFC fighter to hold both the BMF belt and a divisional title simultaneously:
“Winning that belt while holding my title will cement me as the first. The first to hold both belts. The first to knock out volk and what most certainly will happen when we fight, the first one to put you to sleep. Something to calm you down is this: God doesn’t shame anyone.”
“The only thing questionable about me is whether I finish you by ko or submission,” said the 15-0 champion, who added: “You now have the one thing that keeps you relevant and that would grant you a money fight, the BMF belt.”
Ilia Topuria could face Brian Ortega at The Sphere for UFC Noche
Whilst Topuria has been calling for a UFC Spain event, it appears that such an event sadly won’t happen this year – with the Spanish-Georgian superstar now hinting that he’d like to return in September at The Sphere in Las Vegas.
He told Ariel Helwani via The MMA Hour “I will be ready for September – either September or October. I’m always in shape, always ready, always ready to go, ready to kill and never ready to die.”
“I think that they want me to fight in The Sphere in September, so we’ll see how they’ll figure out things. At the same time, we want to go to Spain and bring the UFC here in the first trimester of next year so that’s one of the reasons I want to fight in September-October to be able to fight again [in Spain].”
Whilst Ortega has arguably earned himself a title shot, albeit likely being the third-choice to Holloway and Volkanovski, the bigger hook here would be that this fight would go down on Mexican Independence Day, with Ortega proudly representing his Mexican heritage on the world stage.
At the time of writing, UFC 306 at The Sphere in Las Vegas has no announced fights, with the expectation being for Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko to feature on that card following their stint on The Ultimate Fighter this summer.