So IIia Topuria is no longer the UFC Featherweight Champion.
That was especially confirmed when Alex Volkanovski regained the prestigious title at UFC 314. The plan is for the 29-year-old to move up to the Lightweight division and challenge Islam Makhachev for the 156-pound belt, but Dana White has made it clear that the former featherweight champ may not instantly get a title shot.
So who could potentially face Topuria? Well, if the UFC offered him Conor McGregor, he'd definitely take the fight.
“I think he’s going to come back,” Topuria said on the Joe Rogan Experience. “If they give the opportunity to guys at, what, 40 years old like [Andrei] Arlovski, you can have so many names who fight at 40 years old. Why not Conor? ...
“Actually, we had the talks [about a fight],” Topuria continued. “I don’t know. I do this one, then I’m going to get some calls. You know how the UFC is: They are very specific, ‘Don’t say anything to no one.’
“But if they offer me a fight against Conor right now, I’ll say why not? Why not? I wouldn’t say no. ... That would be a great one.
Conor isn’t coming back anytime soon. The UFC star is currently running for Irish Presidency and has put all of his focus on that at the moment. Even then, Conor McGregor was originally supposed to come back and fight Michael Chandler at UFC 303, but that bout was ultimately scrapped due to injury. There’s an uncertainty about whether Conor will return to the octagon, though the former UFC Lightweight Champion has made it clear that he’s not retired.
Nevertheless, If Topuria can’t get a fight with Makhachev or McGregor then he’ll love to step into the octagon against rising lightweight Paddy Pimblett.
“What excites me more is the fight with Paddy.” Topuria explained. “That fight excites me even more [than a fight with Conor], and if they can put that fight in Spain, at the Bernabéu Stadium [it would be huge].
“I know that Dana doesn’t like to put the events in a stadium, but that’s the only stadium in the world that they can close the roof. [They can fit] 80,000 [people]... and a lot of people can travel from England to Spain, and that happens very often. ...
“That will be a massive one, in Spain, against that pimple?”
We’ll just see if Topuria is able to get that fight against Paddy or Makhachev sometime soon.