It’s been over a month since Ilia Topuria vacated the featherweight title so Alexander Volkanovski and Diego Lopes can fight for it at UFC 314 in Miami. The expectation was that we’d be seeing “La Leyenda” booked into a lightweight title bout soon after, but that hasn’t materialized yet.
Following an MMA event in Spain where Topuria was hailed as a hero by the crowd, he spoke to the press about what was next.
“I don’t know who’s going to be my next fight,” he said in Spanish (via Irati Prat). “The only I know for sure is I have the UFC’s word that my next fight will be for the world title.”
“The belt is at stake. It’s at stake,” Topuria affirmed. “That was the promise for leaving the [featherweight] title vacant. Because come on, I could’ve done it another way, like, ‘I’m going to wait until they send a contract to sign, then I’ll vacate the title.’”
“But always — always — everything they’ve promised me has been delivered.”
So what’s going on? It seems clear that the UFC is waiting to see what happens at UFC 315 when welterweight champion Belal Muhammad fights Jack Della Maddalena. Lightweight champ Islam Makhachev is intent on moving up a division, but Belal is a training partner and represents Palestine. So if Muhammad wins at UFC 315 — and the odds currently have “Remember The Name” a -245 favorite — Islam will stay put at 155.
From there, we’ll see if the UFC delivers on what Topuria considers an ironclad promise to book him into a title fight. Makhachev hasn’t sounded interested in fighting another featherweight, and there are other worthy contenders like Charles Oliveira and Justin Gaethje waiting in the wings. But it’s clear that Ilia Topuria is the biggest fight they could make, so we’d be shocked if “La Leyenda” gets passed over.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
