Ilia Topuria has sent a concerning warning to Conor McGregor after the Irishman continued to mock him following his latest win.
The Georgian rising star defended his featherweight title against legendary former champion Max Holloway last night at UFC 308, knocking out the Hawaiian for the first time. But McGregor, who has also beaten Holloway, was unimpressed in his post-fight social media posts.
Now, Topuria has branded his fellow featherweight champion as “sick”, and threatened to brutalise him in similar fashion if they are ever to cross paths. McGregor hasn’t fought since 2021, and his last win was in January of 2020 against Donald Cerrone.
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Ilia Topuria viciously stops Max Holloway in UFC 308 main event
In the main event of last night’s 20th Abu Dhabi show for the UFC, Ilia Topuria defended his featherweight title for the first time against Max Holloway. Having dethroned Alexander Volkanovski who looked unbeatable at 145lb, there was a belief that the Georgian may be an all-time great in the division.
And he cemented his status as one of the best ever as he took control from the early stages of the fight. He taunted Holloway immediately from the first bell as he pointed to the center of the octagon in the opening seconds, imitating his iconic UFC 300 moment with Justin Gaethje.
However, Holloway didn’t bite on that and instead boxed intelligently in what was mostly a stand-up fight after an early takedown. He managed to land with volume and keep on the end of his jab in an impressive showing.
But just over a minute through the third round, Topuria managed to rock and hurt Holloway, before knocking him down for the first tie in his lengthy career. From there, he landed ground and pound and the fight was ultimately stopped.
Conor McGregor was unimpressed with Ilia Topuria after UFC 308
A former opponent of Holloway’s in his own right, Conor McGregor was watching intently from his yacht, which is believed to be in Marbella. He had bet $500,000 on the challenger to win by KO early, but that was part of a double that had already been scuppered when Khamzat Chimaev beat Robert Whittaker.
And while he did tell the UFC to “call me” in a cryptic tweet teasing a fight with Topuria, he ultimately was not very complimentary of the Spanish-based champion. He then declared that he would “Cave his head in handy.”
Eventually McGregor did give Topuria some props, but reckoned that the featherweight is too small to be able to put up a major fight with he or any bigger rivals. “Good little fighter, too small for anything substantial IMO,” McGregor wrote. “He was getting chewed up there.”
“Few fw’s now in the mix, and I beat every single one of them,” McGregor wrote in another tweet. “I am that divisions menace. Point blank. Everyone on that list I hurt badly and finish. Not one of them lay a glove on King Mac.”
Ilia Topuria hits back at Conor McGregor after mocking tweets
When Topuria was presented with McGregor’s tweets after the fight, he was not too pleased with what had been said. He branded the Irishman ‘sick’, and warned him against ever squaring up to him if they were to see each other in person.
“I don’t know what to say,” an exasperated Topuria told ESPN MMA after the fact. “F*** him, I’m telling you f*** him. He fakes the comeback every time, he insults everyone in the UFC, he is like ‘I don’t care about anyone, ahh, I don’t respect anyone’.
“Bro, you’re f***ing sick, you have some problems to fix in your f***ing mind. You need to take some classes on respect and how to treat people because you’re going to end up really really bad. When you follow these kinds of values in life you end up really bad.
“So ask God not to cross paths with me, never ever, because I am going to f*** you up whenever I’m going to see you.”
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