Ilia Topuria is done chasing Terence Crawford.
For a hot minute, the two-division UFC champion was pushing hard for a boxing bout against “Bud,” who at the time was in the middle of preparing the fight Canelo Alvarez in September 2025. Crawford would end up beating Alvarez in a masterful performance … and then he retired from the sport.
Crawford no-sold Ilia’s challenge, saying he’d never even seen “El Matador” fight. That kicked off what looked like a mostly one-sided feud from Topuria, who wasn’t
able to get anyone to take his challenge seriously. All that seems over with “Bud” properly confirmed his retirement.
“Now that he’s retired, congrats to him for an amazing career that he had,” Topuria said on The Ariel Helwani Show. “He’s one of those boxers that I like to watch. I have learned many, many things from his style, so I don’t wanna even talk or challenge him because he’s retired. So I wish him all the best to him and his family.”
While some expect “Bud” to return from retirement any day now, Topuria believes Crawford is done.
“He seems to be a a serious guy,” Ilia said. “Like, he seems to be the kind of person that says something and he backs it up.”
That hasn’t stopped Topuria from wanting a boxing match … eventually, once he’s done dominating in the world of MMA.
“Of course, it’s on my list. Of course, it’s gonna happen,” he said. “It’s gonna happen. At least one fight, after I finish my journey in the mixed martial arts, I’m gonna make that move for sure.”
“I don’t know [who I’ll fight against]. When the moment arrives, I don’t know who’s gonna be on the top, who’s gonna be the world champion in the weight class where I wanna fight. So we’ll see, there are many factors that matters before taking those kind of decisions.”
Topuria was definitely high on his own supply when he called out Crawford. While he’s a massive star in Spain, he still hasn’t broken through into North American stardom. Once he fights in the main event of the UFC White House card, that could change. If he moves up to welterweight and beats Islam Makhachev, no one would be able to deny he’s the best mixed martial artist in the world.
Then it will be time to call out the Crawfords of the world and hope that the match-up intrigues some rich Saudi backers. But first, there’s work to be done in the UFC.
