Ilia Topuria’s manager wants to lay all the accusations that Ilia Topuria ducked Islam Makhachev over money to rest.
The UFC White House card on June 11th is a pretty big card, but it could have been a lot bigger if the UFC had booked Jon Jones to fight Alex Pereira instead of Ciryl Gane, and Islam Makhachev to fight Ilia Topuria instead of Justin Gaethje. Money is the obvious reason these weren’t booked, but UFC execs insist it has more to do with Jon Jones being unreliable and Islam Makhachev having
a hand injury.
Makhachev hasn’t really played along with that narrative. After the hand injury was announced he released video punching a heavy bag. And then he called out Ilia Topuria, saying “El Matador” dodged the fight over money demands. Now Ilia’s manager Malki Kawa is laying out his client’s path to fighting Gaethje instead of Makhachev at the White House.
“The Monday before [the White House card was announced], I called and said, ‘Hey, are you guys gonna use Ilia Topuria for this [White House] card?’ The answer was no,” Kawa said on Instagram Live. “Wednesday comes around, I get a phone call that says, ‘Hey, he could fight. It’s his choice: Justin Gaethje or Islam Makhachev. And I immediately said, ‘S–t, we want Islam.'”
“They said, ‘Okay. Great. We’ll give you X number for you to fight him. And I said, ‘Bro, that never will happen.’ They said, ‘Here’s the number and you have a choice.’ … It’s not like they offered me Islam and I said no to Islam. I said no to Islam and Gaethje. We weren’t gonna fight [at the White House]. The number was so low we didn’t want nothing to do with it.”
“That was on Wednesday,” Kawa continued. “Friday comes. They didn’t speak to me. I didn’t speak to them. I go to bed. 10 at night, I go to sleep. At 11:59 to the T, I get a phone call. I’m getting blown up by my brother. He’s blowing me up. ‘Hey, bro. Hunter just called me. They want Ilia to take the fight. They want Ilia to fight.’ Called Hunter. Said ‘What’s up?’ ‘We want Ilia to fight.’ I said, ‘Okay. Islam?’ ‘Islam can’t fight. His hand is messed up.'”
“That Friday night, I’m on the phone with UFC brass, and we’re negotiating. And I told you guys this. All night we negotiated. That negotiation was for Justin Gaethje. Islam Makhachev was never an actual option.”
On his side of things, Kawa doesn’t understand how everything has gotten so twisted.
“Who’s ducking who? I’m still standing here today in front of you guys and telling you I never once said Islam was ducking anybody,” he said. “Everybody agrees that Islam and Ilia might be the biggest fight in UFC history. Don’t you guys think that should have the biggest payday in UFC history? I’d be a damn fool to take that fight for less than the right numbers for that fight. Why would I do that? It’s not like I asked for $100 million. I didn’t ask for $50 million. I asked for a number that I think is super reasonable.”
“You guys are telling me that Ilia Topuria is running from Islam Makhachev? We’re asking for that fight. We actually wanna move up to 170, fight them there and win that third belt. So after this fight, what’s gonna happen is we’re gonna have that conversation again. And it’ll be up to the UFC again whether or not we get that fight. But the numbers have to be right.”
Kawa described his client Topuria as completely relaxed regarding the whole situation.
“When I called Ilia at that time, I want you guys to understand at midnight my time, I think it was like six in the morning in Spain. ‘Hey bro, they want you to fight on the White House.’ So he’s laughing at me. ‘Oh really? Okay. Islam?’ And I said, ‘No, they said Islam’s hand is hurting. He laughed again. He was like, ‘Man, f–k. At some point that guy’s gotta fight me.”
Here’s hoping that’s true, but with the UFC’s recent track record of putting together big fights, we’re not so sure.
