Diego Lopes has revealed that a behind-the-scenes rule change from the UFC brass regarding champions pursuing a title in another division is the real reason that Ilia Topuria chose to vacate his featherweight title this week.
Titleholders chasing double-champ status has become an increasing trend recently, perhaps influenced by Conor McGregor doing so at featherweight and lightweight at the peak of his fame several year ago.
In fact it’s been a running theme at 145lbs as Max Holloway unsuccessfully attempted to do so back in 2019, as did Alexander Volkanovski twice in 2023, and this year Ilia Topuria has continued the trend, while others like welterweight champ Belal Muhammad, middleweight titleholder Dricus du Plessis and 205lb kingpin Alex Pereira have also got on-board with the possibility of doing so.
While this can generate a lot of interest and create compelling super-fights, it also has some negative knock-on effects, as it can leave the top end of divisions in limbo while waiting on their champion to return, and is encouraging titleholders to prematurely look beyond their weight class before they’ve cleaned out their current one.
As such, the featherweight division’s next title challenger Lopes has now claimed that the UFC have implemented a new rule that forces the champion to vacate their belt if they want to challenge for another one.
“They were very clear to us that they said that they are no longer giving [the] chance to jump from one weight class to another,” Lopes told ESPN. “If you want to move up, you have to vacate your title. That’s what UFC has said to all champions who are planning to move up a weight class. They will no longer have the status of double champion simultaneously.
“If [Topuria] is going to be a double champion, [he] will be nothing more than a champion of two categories.”
The rule certainly now makes it a huge gamble for any champion to decide to move up a weight class, and that may put off many, but apparently Ilia Topuria still believes in himself enough that he feels it’s worth the risk in order to mount a challenge against current lightweight champion and No.1 pound-for-pound fighter in the sport Islam Makhachev.
