"He was avoiding to fight me all the time. He said something like, 'I said to the UFC that I want the easiest fight, that I want to fight with Ilia Topuria.' That's a lie. A challenger never chooses fights. Never," Topuria told Ariel Helwani. "I'm the champion, I choose who I want to fight. And I said I want to fight Max Holloway. And they [UFC] told me he's asking to stay in the 155 division, to fight with Michael Chandler. I don't know he asked about many, many guys.. They told him, 'No Max you have to fight with Ilia because he wants to fight you.' So finally he has to accept but in the beginning he was trying really, really hard to avoid me."
"Holloway earned his claim to title contention with a BMF title win over Justin Gaethje at lightweight this past April. According to Topuria, he asked for the Holloway matchup for his first title defense."
"Holloway initially claimed that he called for a title shot against Topuria. However, Topuria refutes that claim, saying a challenger doesn't get to call his shots anyway."
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