Ahead of his lightweight title charge next weekend, former 135er Ilia Topuria has stunningly vowed to make another leap in weight class to pursue Islam Makhachev, after marking out on the Russian this year already.
Islam, who already plans on moving on to 170 lbs to fight Jack Della Maddalena for the welterweight crown, had notably refused to engage with Topuria, claiming that the Spaniard was simply untested at lightweight.
And now in his absence, Topuria hopes to take the soon-to-be vacated lightweight title against former champion Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 next weekend.
And should Topuria succeed in this endeavour and Islam succeed in his, the Spaniard has vowed to start a welterweight title campaign in the following month. And if that does sound personal, that’s because it very well might be. Topuria vs Makhachev has all the fundamentals of being a generational feud. However, funnily enough, to Redditors, it just seems more personal than anything else.
And as far as they’re concerned, Topuria’s fascination with belts is nothing when it compares to his desire to challenge and beat pound-for-pound best, Makhachev.
“Buddy doesn’t care about the belts, I think,” The post on Ilia Topuria read. “He just wants to fight Islam atp.“
Buddy doesn’t care about the belts i think. He just wants to fight islam atp
byu/Dear-Swim-2917 inufc
And while we’ve seen some notable rivalries down the years in the UFC, a fan has claimed this “beef” between Topuria and Makhachev stands out above the rest.
“Same kind of generational beef,” They posted on Reddit.
A former bantamweight earlier in his career, Topuria will barely have to cut any weight, same as Islam, claimed a third user. “Ilia v Islam at 170 would barely be any weight cutting for them, so that aspect of the fight would be cool,” he noted.
Comment
byu/Dear-Swim-2917 from discussion
inufc
Meanwhile, amidst the budding rivalry, maintaining his plan to potentially return to lightweight, Makhachev has also issued an open challenge to Topuria ahead of his UFC 317 return.
Makhachev remains coy on Topuria pairing
While a welterweight move is imminent, Makhachev has plans to bounce back to his former lightweight stomping grounds before his career is over. Earlier this week, Islam’s teammate, former bantamweight title contender Umar Nurmagomedov, claimed that Islam had never wanted to vacate the lightweight title.
He also mentioned that Islam now wants to win the title at welterweight and then move back down to 155lbs and snatch the usurp the throne once again to create a legacy previously unheard of.
Notably, earlier in May, Islam had asserted that the only reason he hadn’t entertained the proposition from Topuria was due to his untested prowess at 155 lbs — something that can easily be fixed.
Difference between me and you, that I cleaned top list in my division, moved to next, but you ran away from two contenders who had consecutive 5-9 wins in FW division. You are nobody in LW division, just a big mouth from Spain with nice haircut. Go get one W, and we can talk boy
— Makhachev Islam (@MAKHACHEVMMA) May 15, 2025
