Becoming a UFC champion is an endeavor reserved for the very privileged few. Maintaining that status actively is already something extremely complicated. You know about it well Ilia Topuriawho won the featherweight belt in February of this year and successfully defended it last October against Max Holloway. The demand for both preparations was maximum, leaving absolutely nothing in the pipeline, trying to climb his level even more in each passing lawsuit.
Topuria achieved what seemed impossible: unseat Alexander Volkanovski as champion and knock out someone who had never lost in that way in the UFC, such as the Hawaiian Max Holloway. The two biggest possible challenges I encountered in the pen division were solved with total authority. Therefore, once the main objective was finished, the Spanish ‘monarch”s gaze turned to the upper weight category: lightweight. Islam Makhachev is there as champion, but he already has a fight scheduled. Thus, in statements to El Partidazo de la Cope, Topuria pointed out Charles Oliveira as his possible next rival.
These words caused a lot of astonishment among the UFC groups on the other side of the pond, in the United States, where the important cards move. One of the most authoritative voices when it comes to analysts, former two-time UFC champion Daniel Cormierwanted to comment on the matter. «When you beat the best, especially the two who ruled the division for so long, there can be a little fatigue. I’m not talking about muscle fatigue, but mental fatigue. You have to be very prepared to do what he did to Max Holloway and what he did to Volkanovski,” he noted on his YouTube channel.
Furthermore, he wanted to put himself in their place, empathize, and feel what, clearly, is the feeling that the Spanish champion is having. «I think Topuria may be thinking the following: ‘I just beat the two best featherweights of all time, and now I have to fight Diego Lopes or Evloev?’ I think Topuria feels that the challenges ahead at featherweight are not very stimulating», added Cormier. And reality points that way.
The Topuria team has told this newspaper that their biggest challenges are in the division immediately above, the lightweight division. Facing Volkanovski again or Diego Lopes would not bring them too great a return for the position they consider El Matador currently occupies in the American company. Therefore, having a contender fight against Charles Oliveira or waiting for the opportunity to attack the lightweight title would be challenges that could meet his expectations. Be that as it may, the UFC seems to have other plans, and everything indicates that they will propose to make at least one more defense of the featherweight title, most likely against the Australian Volkanovski.
