Farewell, UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria. Hello, UFC lightweight contender Ilia Topuria.
This was the gist of UFC CEO Dana White’s announcement via Instagram Live on Wednesday night.
“Topuria has felt like he’s done all he can in that division, and he feels like he’s cemented his legacy, and his body cannot make the weight anymore,” White said. “So Topuria will be moving up to 155 pounds and will be vacating the featherweight title.”
That’s big. But then everything about Topuria’s career of late has felt big, momentous, even tiptoeing up to the line of being historic. In 2024 alone he knocked out the last two men to hold the UFC featherweight title before him — men who, as a rule, simply do not get knocked out by anyone in the same division.
He claimed the UFC 145-pound title with a second-round knockout of Alexander Volkanovski. Then he defended it with a third-round knockout of Max Holloway. Now he’s leaving that belt behind to chase bigger game at lightweight, where dominant champion Islam Makhachev has had an iron grip on the belt since 2022.
The UFC hasn’t come out and said Topuria’s next fight will be against Makhachev, but come on. To do anything else would be promotional malpractice, an epic fumble of a golden opportunity. Makhachev needs fresh, interesting challengers. Topuria has already cemented himself as one of the best fighters on the planet, not to mention something of an international superstar. It just makes sense, especially for a company that likes money as much as the UFC.
Consider, for just a moment, the hypothetical scenario where Topuria fights and beats Makhachev to claim the lightweight title right after vacating the featherweight title. Consider what that would mean.
It would mean winning two UFC titles in the span of three fights. It would mean going 3-0 against three of the best fighters in the world. It would be the best three-fight stretch we’ve ever seen in this sport, without question. If you make those kind of moves, as Lloyd Bridges might say, you’re up in the high country.
One of the things that makes this possibility so exciting is how unlikely it seems that Topuria will be able to pull it off. That’s not just me talking, either. As Topuria said on a recent episode of the “Full Send Podcast,” beating people he’s already thumped or is widely expected to thump doesn’t get anyone — himself included — all that excited.
“I don’t like to be a bully and fight with people that I know 100% that I’m going to whoop his ass, you know?” Topuria said. “I like to fight with people that the fans think that it’s going to be very competitive. … With Islam, I’m going to have that.”
Which is to say, Makhachev should probably beat him. The purely speculative future betting odds pegged Topuria as slightly more than a 2-1 underdog against Makhachev right after news of his weight-class jump broke. That means he’s leaving behind a title he could have probably held down easily for at least the next couple years, all to become a challenger in a new division where he’s not really expected to rise beyond contender.
Some of that may not be a choice. Topuria and his coaches have mentioned that the cut to featherweight is untenable over the long term as he packs on weight, but still. This kind of ambitious race into the terrifying unknown is what fans want from their champions. They also so rarely get it.
That makes sense, when you think about it. Fighters spend entire careers striving for one UFC title. It not only carves their name into the walls of the sport, but also unlocks the pay-per-view points that bring, for the first time, payouts on par with a big-time pro athlete. Having just gotten there, who would willingly leave it behind to hunt for bigger, scarier game?
The answer, historically, has been: almost nobody. Sure, Conor McGregor did it. He also never once defended a UFC title and went on to flame out in spectacular fashion. Topuria is taking a big risk for the sake of some big dreams. He’s also doing it without, at least for the moment, looking like the first half of a cautionary tale.
If he can pull this off, beating three of the world’s best fighters in a back-to-back-to-back speed run through the pound-for-pound rankings, he’s an instant great. Full stop. End of discussion. Etch his face onto any and every version of the MMA Mount Rushmore.
And if he can’t? Well, no one can say he lacked ambition or faith in himself. The willingness to try and fail — that excitement that comes with taking on a challenge few people think you’re up for — that’s a prerequisite for greatness.
Topuria’s clearly got that part down. Now comes the really hard part.