UFC 298 witnessed the crowning of a new king of the featherweight division, Ilia Topuria. ‘El Matador’s brilliant second-round knockout victory against Alexander Volkanovski was the highlight of the event. The new champion has roared that he wants some new blood as his challenge, and Movsar Evloev has stepped forward to accept his challenge but what does the champion have to say to him?

After Topuria’s victory, Evloev wasted no time and rushed to X (Formerly Twitter) to challenge the throne of the newly crowned king. Evloev stated, “My congratulations to the new champion. I’m coming for you and taking that belt from you.” Evloev’s words were taken into notice by Topuria, who asserted that the Russian should focus on finishing some opponent first and now Evloev has given a befitting reply to the new champ.

Ilia Topuria and Movsar Evloev’s back-and-forth

Both Ilia Topuria and Movsar Evloev are undefeated but there’s a huge difference between them and that is the featherweight belt. Topuria clinched the belt but Evloev is waiting for his chance but seems like Topuria’s victory against ‘Volk’ is Evloev’s road to the featherweight gold. The Russian sensation asserted that he would take Topuria’s challenge but as per the new champ, Evloev is not ready.

At the UFC 298 press conference, Topuria was questioned about Evloev’s challenge, to which Topuria stated that Evloev was not ready. “Look, Movsar is a good fight for me. I would love to fight him, but the guy has eight fights in the UFC, eight decisions, zero submissions, zero knockouts. From eight decisions, four split decisions. Man, come on! He needs to finish someone. Maybe they can find someone for him in his hometown, I don’t know.”

He further added, “Maybe he can fight with his dad or something like that and get a finish. I don’t know, but he needs to finish someone, you know? Because the record he has right now, yeah, it seems nice he’s undefeated, but man, the guy didn’t finish anyone. So he needs to do something.”

Evloev seems to have taken cognizance of Topuria’s words. The undefeated fighter took to his X handle to add a hilarious tweet for Topuria. He writes “I will beat you by decision as well.” Evloev might be looking to square off against Topuria soon, but the new champion has two other names on his mind before considering a matchup with the Russian.

Topuria has two more names on his mind as challengers

The new champ is not keen on sitting idle. After the victory against Alexander Volkanivski, Topuria took center stage to issue a straight-out challenge to the former dual weight champion, Conor McGregor for a fight in Spain. Topuria stated, “And Conor McGregor, if you still have some balls, I will be waiting for you in Spain.”

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Interestingly, Topuria is willing to give Volkanovski a second chance to reclaim the featherweight title. “He’s such a good person, and to be honest, at this point, I’m like ‘Okay, I’m gonna give him a rematch because he’s a good person,” It must be noted that Topuria’s next fight might take some time to happen.

‘El Matador’ is waiting for opponents and seems like he will be barraged by opponents soon enough considering the fact that the featherweight division is one of the most stacked in the entire UFC. Who do you think would square off against Topuria first?

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