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‘It will be hilarious if both of them lose’: Fans react to trash talk between Ilia Topuria and Islam Makhachev

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Ilia Topuria | Photo by Aldara Zarraoa/WireImage

Ilia Topuria and Islam Makhachev’s recent war of words has the MMA world talking.

The former featherweight champion and the soon-to-be former lightweight champion are both moving up to challenge for world titles in higher divisions. Topuria faces Charles Oliveira for the vacant lightweight title at UFC 317 next month, and Makhachev, who vacated the 155-pound belt, faces new welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena later this year.

Topuria made the move up to lightweight after becoming the first fighter to knock out Max Holloway in his lone featherweight title defense at UFC 308 in October. It appeared he would be on a collision course with Makhachev, although the idea of the longtime lightweight champ moving up to welterweight had been floating around for some time. Makhachev always seemed to welcome the challenge, but publicly stated he would like to see Topuria get a win over a high-level lightweight first before getting his shot.

Now that Makhachev is making the move up to welterweight, Topuria called him a “hypocrite” for—in Topuria’s eyes—doing the same thing he’s doing. The recent back-and-forth has most fans feeling the same way, that they were robbed of a massive fight. Others seem to be hoping for disaster.

The MMA Fighting community weighed in on the topic, and you can check out some of those reactions below.

Daddydaft
It will be hilarious if both of them lose their fights after moving up.
BrutalBOB87
So if they BOTH win the new belts their chasing will we get a catch weight “Super Fight” at say 163lbs? No belts on the line just honor and bragging rights. Also Imagine they both got Starched in round one in both their respective matches?! The chaos it would cause, probably the worst outcome the UFC could possibly have.
Anhedonie
The best move that Islam and his team could’ve done. There would be no upside in beating another 145’er moving up, a loss on the other hand would essentially kill his aspiration of challenging for the ww-title. It’s a power move aswell because everyone knows he’s the guy at 155. His shadow will eclipse the new champ at the division as long as he’s active.
Also, vacating the title is all about Islam not wanting to continue making that gnarling weight cut to make 155. It will be really interesting to see how he fills up and perform when he doesn’t need to deplete himself before the fight.
JohnnyLawrence
Islam is yet to defend against anyone ranked in the top three. Ilia at least beat the two best guys in his division before moving up.
Patanouk
Islam beat the two best guys of his division too actually and he set the record for the most title defenses in the history of the lightweight division.
RonDoLee
This whole thing was by design. Dana allowed Islam to dictate who he will be fighting next. He said Illia needed to fight someone in the division first before he could fight for the title. Belal loses, Islam wanted to wait for the results of Belal, and now moves up and JDM has to fight him or lose the belt. How come Islam wasn’t required to fight someone in the division first? How come Jon Jones hasn’t lost his belt yet. The UFC lines everything up to get a desired result.
A1-Ultimate
The biggest LW fight since Khabib retired was Islam vs Oliveira.
Too many fans forgot how sure they were that Oliveira with most subs in UFC would break and smash the Dagestani sambo fighter.
Then Islam beat Volk in his prime which was a huge fight as well and made fans more excited than Islam vs Ilia can ever be. That was the clash of the two best P4P guys at the same weight…a super fight between two dominant champions.
At this point Ilia is nowhere near that status Volk had when he asked for super fight and accpeted to move up and fight at 155. I hoped to watch Volk lay his hands on other top LW figthers – unfortunately that never happened.
Lets see how long Ilia can last at LW. I really wished to see Poirier vs Ilia as his first test against a top ranked and experienced LW.
zn23
Islam should’ve fought Ilia and then moved up to 170 for JDM.

He bolted too quickly.

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