"His first title defense was delayed when he announced that he would be taking a hiatus to deal with issues in his personal life. The 28-year-old Topuria Team anchor is 9-0 in the UFC and 17-0 as a professional overall. He began his career at featherweight, capturing the championship belt with a knockout of Alexander Volkanovski before defending the strap with a stoppage of Max Holloway. "El Matador" then vacated the 145-pound throne to move up to lightweight."
"While that alone did not provide any insight into Topuria's future plans, the Georgian-Spaniard elaborated in the replies to that post, answering that he expects to make his UFC return sometime between April and June. Topuria also added that he expects to face the winner of the interim 155-pound title clash between Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett in his next outing. Gaeethje and Pimblett will square off in the UFC 324 main event on Jan. 24 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas."
Ilia Topuria expects to make his UFC return between April and June 2026 and intends to face the winner of Justin Gaethje vs. Paddy Pimblett. Topuria wrote he expects the award for best knockout of 2026 to be his. Topuria captured the lightweight title with a first-round KO of Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 and delayed his first defense while taking a hiatus to address personal issues, including a divorce and domestic violence allegations. The 28-year-old is 9-0 in the UFC and 17-0 overall. He previously won featherweight gold against Alexander Volkanovski and defended versus Max Holloway before moving up.
Read at Sherdog
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]