Ilia Topuria vacating the featherweight title earlier this year ruled out the possibility of him fighting one of the division’s leading contenders, Yair Rodriguez, but it seems that’s not a fight that interested ‘La Layenda’ anyway.
Rodriguez may be a former interim 145lb titleholder whose known for his extremely creative striking ability and coming off a convincing decision win over former two-division Bellator champion Patricio Pitbull at UFC 314, but apparently Topuria doesn’t rate his fighting style.
“I don’t know what to tell you about Yair Rodriguez. I’m not a big fan of him,” Topuria said on Joe Rogan’s podcast. “He’s the type of guy that you don’t even need to take him down, he goes to the ground himself. He’s like very spectacular the way he fights, the striking, the kicks he throws and all that, but I’m not a big fan of him.”
While the undefeated Topuria isn’t impressed by Rodriguez, he did reserve praise for the two featherweight legends who he just so happened to have KO’d last year.
“I’m a fan of Volk (Volkanovski) and Max Holloway,” Topuria said. “Actually, they were the smartest guys that I ever faced inside the octagon. I felt that they were smart. They had that fight IQ. They know how to fight.”
