El Matador’ Ilia Topuria knocked out Max Holloway at UFC 308, and former two-division champion Conor McGregor called for a fight against the Georgian-Spanish athlete. The featherweight king responded, not sounding too pleased with the Irish fighter.
Ilia Topuria Responds to Conor McGregor
The Georgian-Spanish athlete Ilia Topuria has had a highly impressive 2024 earning knockout victories against the pound-for-pound ranked Alexander Volkanovski and most recently Max Holloway. ‘The Notorious’ Conor McGregor is a former two-division UFC champion holding titles in both the featherweight and lightweight weight classes. Despite his inactivity in the past few years, he remains one of the biggest stars in the sport.
After the UFC 308 main event, hosted in Abu Dhabi, in which Topuria defended his throne with a knockout against ‘Blessed’ Holloway, McGregor took to X and called for a fight in a now-deleted Tweet. He said: “Call me,” then added, “Few [featherweights] in the mix and I beat every single one of them. I am that division’s menace. Point blank. Everyone on that list I hurt badly and finish. Not one of them lay a glove on King Mac.”
In response to McGregor, ‘El Matador’ said:
“I don’t know what to say… He fakes the comeback every time, he insults everyone in the UFC… Bro, you’re f**king sick. You have some problems to fix in your mind, you know. You need to take some class on respect, how to treat other people because you’re gonna end up really, really bad. When you follow these kinds of values in your life, you’re gonna end up really bad. So, honest to God, don’t cross paths with me never ever because I’m gonna f**k you up whenever I’m gonna see you.”
Ilia Topuria has looked to go up in weight and compete in the lightweight division now that he has had his first title defense completed. However, McGregor has struggled to get back in the cage over the past several years. For now, Topuria and McGregor will likely only trade verbally.