Ilia Topuria still has one eye on the former lightweight champion after their paths didn’t cross.
With Islam Makhachev vacating his 155-pound title, Topuria will now face Charles Oliveira for the belt in the main event of UFC 317.
While ‘El Matador’ taking on ‘Do Bronx’ is still a huge fight, the matchup that most fight fans wanted to see was Topuria vs Makhachev.
The former featherweight champion is still keeping tabs on the pound-for-pound king, especially if he achieves success when moving up to welterweight, but he also believes that there’s an even bigger fight for him in the future with Topuria having more than one rival.
Ilia Topuria says a fight with Paddy Pimblett would be bigger than the Islam Makhachev matchup
Ilia Topuria vs Islam Makhachev would be a huge fight between two of the very best fighters in the sport but the Russian isn’t the only rival that ‘El Matador’ has a score to settle with.
Topuria has a long-running feud with another one of the UFC’s biggest stars, Paddy Pimblett, with the two men getting into a heated confrontation years before they both achieved huge success inside the Octagon.
The former featherweight champion has already said that if he wins the lightweight title, he will defend it against ‘The Baddy’ if Pimblett is able to produce one more win.
Topuria recently stated in an interview with Kevin Iole that in his opinion, this matchup would be even bigger than him facing off with Makhachev.
The undefeated star said that even Makhachev’s home fans don’t care about him because they don’t bother to stay up and watch his fights live.
“I think that it’s going to be even bigger, me against Paddy than me against Islam because the one who no one gives a f— about him, that’s Islam. No one gives a f—. Even in Dagestan, when he’s fighting, the people go to sleep and they watch his next fight in the morning… Even at home, who gives a f— about Islam? He doesn’t even know how to pronounce two words.”
- READ MORE: Ilia Topuria issues cold response to Charles Oliveira claiming he hits harder ahead of UFC 317
Ilia Topuria slams Islam Makhachev’s team… ‘They act like they invented the sport’
During his rise in the UFC, Ilia Topuria has made some divisive comments but thus far, he’s always backed them up.
He highlighted this when speaking to Kevin Iole as he called out Islam Makhachev’s team for being entitled and being proven wrong.
“They act like they invented the sport. I already said this. They talk, they talk, they talk and at the end of the day, they do what they are told to do. They said that they wouldn’t vacate the belt, they would move up to the welterweight division, that I wouldn’t get the title shot directly, that I had to do one more fight to get the shot, and what happened at the end?”
If Topuria emerges victorious at UFC 317, he’s only going to have even bigger fights in front of him as the lightweight champion.