Joe Rogan claims Topuria refused to go down under for his first title defense in a rematch against Alexander Volkanovski.
Ilia Topuria is serious about calling the shots now that he’s the UFC featherweight champion.
“El Matador” won the belt off Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298 in February, and has gone back and forth on who he wants to fight for his first title defense. A rematch against Volkanovski would be acceptable … but perhaps not first. After UFC 300, Topuria declared he’d fight Max Holloway next. But only if Max puts his newly won BMF belt on the line.
“I decide who, when, and where,” Topuria declared in a lengthy rant on X (formerly Twitter). “If you don’t like the terms I’m sure Ortega will oblige.”
The only thing questionable about me is whether I finish you by ko or submission.I just beat the guy that beat you not once, not twice, but 3 times. You now have the one thing that keeps you relevant and that would grant you a money fight, the BMF belt. I no longer fight for…
— Ilia Topuria (@Topuriailia) April 19, 2024
Typically it’s the UFC that decides those things, no matter how much bluster from the champion. But Topuria is a superstar in the making with a European fanbase on the brink of exploding. And he’s using that to call his own shots.
In a new episode of his podcast, Joe Rogan claimed Topuria had turned down a second fight with Volkanovski in August.
“I don’t know who he wants to fight next,” Rogan said during a conversation with Max Holloway. “But I guess he feels like he’s the champ, he can call the shots. I know that he turned down the Perth one — [UFC] 305, the Volkanovski rematch.”
As for his demands towards Holloway? “Blessed” laughed them off.
“He writes like a freaking paragraph to me,” Max told Joe. “I didn’t even read it, that’s how long it was. He writes a paragraph to me, and I was just tripping out. It was like an angry girlfriend text, you know. Like my wife don’t even text me like that.”
“I read the first sentence and I was like, ‘I’m not reading this bro.’ What the hell is wrong with you? I don’t know what’s going on. I read the first two and then I saw you had to scroll, I was like what the f—? Did I make my wife mad? I had to make sure that wasn’t her.”
While Ilia does need to learn that brevity is the soul of wit, hopefully the UFC stops messing around and gets Topuria vs. Holloway booked. In Spain, where it belongs.