"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."