Ilia Topuria will put his lightweight title on the line this June against Justin Gaethje, but he still feels an Islam Makhachev super fight this year is not out of the realm of possibility.
In Makhachev’s last outing, he defeated Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 322 in November to earn the welterweight title. After becoming a two-division champion, Makhachev mentioned his interest in facing former 170-pound king Kamaru Usman for his first defense of his newly earned belt, but at this point it seems the champion has changed his mind on the subject given his own interest in a match with Topuria.
Of course, before this potential matchup can occur, Topuria will be facing Gaethje on June 14th from the South Lawn of the White House for UFC Freedom 250. Gaethje earned his opportunity to fight for Topuria’s belt by securing the interim title back in January with an impressive unanimous decision over Paddy Pimblett.
Despite being heavily focused on his upcoming match with ‘The Highlight’, Topuria is looking forward to a potential match with Makhachev, and hopes it can occur before the end of 2026.
“If it would be my choice, I would fight him on this card or by the end of the year,” Topuria told ESPN. “I’m excited, too. I’m a fighter. This is what I do every day of my life, so why not test my skills against someone like him? He is a very skillful fighter, I respect him as a fighter, he dominated the whole division for I don’t know how many years.
“He fought for the title I don’t know how many times, so what better than to test yourself against someone like him and at the same time everyone’s going to be freaking out. Everyone’s going to be very excited about the fight and I love that, I love people to be excited to go to an event. We’ll see, hopefully it’s going to happen.”
(h/t MMA Fighting)