Joe Rogan has rekindled talk of UFC featherweight champion ilia Topuria moving up a weight class to fight lightweight champion Islam Makhachev by stating that he thinks it’s the fight to make next.
“As crazy as it sounds, I hope Ilia goes up to [155 pounds]. I really do,” Rogan said on his UFC 312 Fight Companion podcast at the weekend. “[Alexander] Volkanovski – Diego Lopes [at] 145, Ilia goes up to 55. I don’t care if he only defended the title one time or didn’t, who cares. Let’s go. Let’s f*cking go.
“It’d be nice [to see him fight some of the other contenders at featherweight] but also who cares? Let’s go. Let’s f*cking go.”
It was the 28-year-old Topuria who first floated the idea of this super-fight with Makhachev after he KO’d Max Holloway to defend his 145lb title for the first time last year.
However, despite also claiming at the time that he’d be willing to vacate his title in order to facilitate a move up to 155lbs, he’s since cooled his heels on the idea and indicated that he intended to stick around at featherweight after all.
As a result it was largely expected that Topuria would head into a rematch with former champ Volkanovski next, who he dethroned via KO in February of last year, but Rogan questions whether that’s really the fight that people want to see.
“If you want to make the big fight for July, is it the Volkanovski rematch? I don’t know,” Rogan said. “Volkanovski, people probably want to see him win one.
“He gets beaten by Islam in the first fight, he gets KO’d by Islam in the second fight … and then he gets KO’d by Ilia. So two KO losses in a row, one decision, even though he’s a legend, you kind of want to see him beat a contender maybe.”
