Ilia Topuria moved up to lightweight from featherweight in part due to the difficult weight cut.

Topuria is set to fight for the vacant UFC Lightweight Title on June 28 at UFC 317, where he’ll face off against Charles Oliveira. The belt will became vacant once the fight begins after Islam Makhachev’s decision to move up to welterweight. Topuria had moved up to lightweight after just one title defense, knocking out Max Holloway in his last fight at UFC 308. While Topuria expressed his desire to win a title in another weight class, he also admitted he could not continue making featherweight. 

“When you’re cutting weight and you can’t eat or drink water, you don’t care about any material things. They can give you bags of money, they can give you all the cars you want, you don’t care at all. If they give you this little glass of water and say, ‘You can drink this and it won’t increase your weight,’ I’ll give you whatever it takes in that moment. I’m so low. I feel terrible. It’s like sitting naked in the middle of the street. I feel terrible. So I didn’t want to suffer anymore. I didn’t want to go through that. I’d already done it throughout my career. I’d already achieved my dream, which was to become a world champion. I had to close that chapter because I didn’t want to suffer anymore. Because honestly, it’s like living in the desert and I wanted to live on the beach,” Topuria said