Ilia Topuria Wants to End Beef With Team Khabib ‘Like Adults,’ Challenges Islam Makhachev for 2025

UFC featherweight king, Ilia Topuria is all for that Russian smoke! Looking past his UFC 308 main event against Max Holloway, the Spaniard has proposed a fight with Islam Makhachev after the Russian subtly snubbed his callout.

The Dagestani had dismissed Topuria’s challenge earlier and warned the Spaniard of dire consequences if he stepped over the line. However, ‘El Matador’ reacted to the lightweight champion’s warning by doubling down and insisting on settling the scores in the octagon in 2025.

Topuria returned to Twitter to fire back, noting down his thoughts in a brief tweet that read,

“I don’t need to cross lines but it seems like the kids that hang out with you will try to cross a line they can’t come back from. Let’s leave the kids out of it and settle it like adults inside the octagon 2025.” 

Topuria has been calling for high-profile fights for quite some time with personalities like Conor McGregor, Paddy Pimblett, and now the pound-4-pound top dog, Islam Makhachev.

Topuria, during a recent online Q&A session, revealed his desire to jump up to lightweight and even implied that he’d trounce the lightweight champion, Makhachev.

In response, the Dagestani asked the Spaniard to focus on his division and put his mouth where his money was.

Meanwhile, Makhachev’s AKA coach, Javier Mendez shared his thoughts on a potential champ vs champ fight between Topuria and Makhachev and has deemed it unnecessary!

Mendez not one for Ilia vs Islam feud

AKA head coach, Javier Mendez remains of the opinion that Topuria needs to rethink before he finalizes his dream bout with Makhachev. During an exclusive to MMA Junkie, the 54-year-old had told the media that there were bigger challenges at the moment for the Dagetani other than the UFC featherweight champion.

Javier noted that his pupil would rather go up in weight to welterweight if he were to do another champ vs champ fight instead of going down.

“You know what, for me, if Islam (Makhachev) were to do another champ vs. champ fight, it’s better for him to go up in weight. If we had the choice, if UFC told us we could fight with the UFC welterweight champion or (Ilia) Topuria, we’d choose welterweight. That’s what I want. I’m confident that that’s what Islam wants, too.”

Even though he thinks highly of the new featherweight champion, a fight between Ilia and Islam doesn’t excite him at all, and claims that it’s the promotion that decides what’s next for both fighters and not Topuria.