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Charles Oliveira vs. Ilia Topuria ‘Will Happen Only for the UFC Title,’ Says Chael Sonnen

Allan Binoy
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Ilia Topuria (L), Charles Oliveira (R)

Officially moving up from featherweight, Ilia Topuria has his sights set firmly on the UFC lightweight title and a potential clash with the reigning champ, Islam Makhachev. However, at this point, the Spaniard seems to have dug himself into a Catch-22 situation.

The champion Makhachev and his team have reportedly refused to entertain a match with Topuria before he fights at least once with a fellow lightweight contender. At this point, the closest man to the Makhachev’s title is former champion Charles Oliveira.

However, according to analyst Chael Sonnen, Oliveira isn’t about to give Topuria his time of the day unless he can knock on his gates with UFC gold on offer.

In an episode of the Good Guy/ Bad Guy Show on ESPN, Sonnen recounted Oliveira’s words and quoted the Brazilian.

“I will only fight Ilia Topuria if he wins the belt. If he comes up and proves he belongs here, if he’s the world champion, I will then fight him.”, he said.

But this might not be Oliveira’s choice to make. He lost his #1 title contender fight to Arman Tsarukyan last year. The only reason he has been positioned as a challenger is because bossman Dana White has asked Arman to get to the back of the line after the Armenian fighter pulled out of UFC 311 with less than 48 hours of notice.

As Sonnen put it, Oliveira’s demand sounds “ridiculous” because he has no real leverage.

“In this position I can, this is my weight class, I hold a higher ranking, I’ve been a champion here before, this guy is all talk,” Oliveira reportedly said, trying to make his case. But Sonnen wasn’t buying it.

But as interesting as this new development is, it is in contradiction to something Oliveira had said earlier this week.

‘Do Bronx’ will fight whoever the UFC assigns

Speaking to Oddspedia, the former champion had asserted that while he believed himself to be next in line, he had all the respect in the world for Topuria.

Oliveira admitted that since Islam won’t be fighting for a while, so he would have ideally liked to have faced Max Holloway for the BMF title.

Interestingly, he also claimed that Holloway will face Dustin Poirier for the Louisiana native’s retirement fight – something the UFC is yet to announce.

And as far as the Topuria fight was concerned, the Brazilian star believes he can knock him out anytime he wants.

“I’ll fight whoever they tell me to fight. I have nothing but respect for Ilia Topuria, but that’s at lightweight. It’s the toughest division you’ll ever see and I have power in my hands. I believe in my Jiu-Jitsu, but I believe I can knock out Ilia Topuria.”,  he said.

In the meantime, Topuria now awaits the UFC to perhaps force someone’s hand, having already played all his cards.

Post Edited By:Smrutisnat Jena

About the author

Allan Binoy

Allan Binoy

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Allan Binoy is a MMA journalist at The SportsRush. Taken to the sport in 2015, thanks to a certain Conor McGregor, Allan has himself dabbled in the martial arts. And having graduated from Loyola College, Chennai, with a degree in English Literature, he has learnt to use his love for language to have a voice in the MMA community. Allan has been writing about the gladiatorial stories for more than three years now and has pursued excellence at a number of reputable media organizations, covering every UFC PPV in the last couple of years. In addition to this, the southpaw is also a semi-professional soccer player for Diego Juniors FC in Pune, playing in the Pune Super Division League.

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