Reigning UFC lightweight champion and the organization’s best fighter regardless of weight class, Islam Makhachev, commented on the statement of current UFC featherweight titleholder Elijah Topuria, who after defeating Alexander Volkanovski called the Russian his next big target and also reminded him of the only defeat of his career.
“I don’t know why Topuria is talking about everyone right now,” the Russian told MMAJunkie. “After his fight, I made a post congratulating him on his victory, and he wrote about my fight, which I lost.”
“He’s a good fighter, he has good boxing, but he has a tough fight in his division against Movsar Yevloyev and I believe Movsar can beat him because stylistically, it’s a bad fight for Topuria, but we’ll see. Right now he’s talking about lightweight, welterweight, boxing, naming everybody, but he needs to focus on his division”
On February 17 at UFC 298 in Anaheim, Elijah Topuria knocked out Alexander Volkanovski in the second round, taking the featherweight title away from the Australian, and in a later interview stated that he aims to become a double champion, promising to give Islam Makhachev trouble. The Spanish-Georgian fighter also expressed confidence that he could beat undefeated Khabib Nurmagomedov.
As for Islam Makhachev, he plans to make another title defense this June, and his opponent could be American Dustin Puryear, ranked third in the division.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/34223-islam-makhachev-otvetil-ilii-topurii.html?rand=19907
