Ilia Topuria, like most on the roster, would love to compete at the UFC White House card in June, and he has the perfect opponent in mind.
The UFC light heavyweight champion’s first title defense hasn’t been announced just yet, but with the UFC’s massive event at the White House taking on a life of its own in the MMA community, “El Matador” was asked who would be his ideal opponent if he were to take part in the massive event.
“Islam Makhachev,” Topuria said during a press conference in Georgia (h/t
She Loves the Gloves). “I think it would be one of the biggest fights in UFC history: no one has ever fought for a third title, and Islam has dominantly finished everything he needed to do in his division and then changed weight classes. I think it’s a fight of a giant magnitude, which suits us all, as well as the UFC.”
Topuria vacated the featherweight title following a knockout win over Max Holloway at UFC 308 in October 2024 to make the move to lightweight and capture another divisional title. The scenario he drew up when making that decision was to face Makhachev in an attempt to defeat the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Instead, Makhachev had the same idea as Topuria, as he vacated the title — which Topuria won with a brutal first-round knockout of Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 in June.
Makhachev is challenging Jack Della Maddalena for the welterweight title in the main event of UFC 322 in November. Should Makhachev get it done, Topuria reiterates future plans to make the move up to 170 himself.
“If Islam loses, he may as well go back to Dagestan, to his farm and continue shepherding his sheep,” Topuria said. “But if he wins, I’ll definitely move up. Definitely. 100 percent.”
Following the final Contender Series event of 2025 on Tuesday, UFC CEO Dana White said it was possible that Topuria could headline the first big Paramount+ event in January, although nothing more was said.
Topuria was asked the same question, and doubled down on White’s comments.
“It’s very possible,” Topuria explained.
“I’m very happy that this new deal with Paramount was signed. There were some challenges with the ESPN deal in terms of holding events in Europe. For example, when we had conversations about holding a UFC event in Spain, they would always ask for it to be held at the American prime time, which is 4-5 a.m. in Spain. This, however, causes a lot of logistical challenges like transportation, restaurants, etc — the entire system. Now, with this new deal, [UFC] will be able to hold events in Europe at local prime time, which works well for all of us who live on this side of the ocean.”
