In his desperate quest to catch up to Islam Makhachev and other UFC stars, the former featherweight champion, Ilia Topuria, found himself in a massive puddle. ‘El Matador’ witnessed an increase of 1.2 million followers on Instagram in a span of a mere 30 days. Right now, his follower count is 9M. Yet, he’s about 1.4M short of catching up to the Dagestani. And the fighting community has claimed that this could happen only because Topuria bought ‘fake followers.’ 

Prior to the battle between Topuria and Alexander Volkanovski, the Australian bashed the Spaniard’s ‘fake followers.’ He said, “I don’t care that he did it. But it shows he’s happy having things given to him. I’ve earned everything, I’ve earned the championship in my bio. I’ve earned my title, earned my followers, you name it, I’ve earned it all. I don’t see him doing the same.” Yes, Topuria beat Volkanovski in style and became the featherweight champion. But his popularity still remained the same. 

This was further reflected on YouTube as MMA Junkie shared the the media day conversations for UFC 317 on their YT channel. Makhachev’s conversation with Mike Bohn amassed 105K views in 10 hours. While Topuria’s media day conversation with the reporters got only 5.9K views in 5 hours. Charles Oliveira was able to get 11K views in 8 hours. And most of the other main event contenders couldn’t even touch one-tenth of the views that Makhachev garnered. 

Another account on X pointed out that the Dagestani’s interview with Bohn got 38K views in just 3 hours. But that of Topuria got just 41K in 5 days. The gap was pretty significant. 

To top it all off, a fan decided to highlight the numbers from IG. He commented on a tweet by Home Of Fight that was captioned, “Ilia Topuria is the best marketer in the UFC. He holds his own press-conferences and gives big headlines for the media. In just a month he has gained over 1.2M followers on Instagram (per MMA Gains on IG).” But the fan shared images that showed ‘El Matador’ has 53.11% fake followers and an engagement rate of only 2.68%. Meanwhile, Makhachev has 27.16% fake followers and an engagement rate of 3.5%. Even his average likes are 100K more than those of Topuria’s. 

Nevertheless, the Spaniard has kept chasing the Dagestani champion. He even claimed that he’d move to the welterweight division if needed. But when he claimed earlier that Makhchev was scared of him, Chael Sonnen had to stand in defense of the soon-to-be former lightweight champion. 

UFC veteran finds Ilia Topuria’s chase for Islam Makhachev insulting 

On an episode of Good Guy/Bad Guy, ‘The American Gangster’ said, “I don’t believe that Islam’s scared to fight anybody. I think the evidence of that fact would be the fact that he switched opponents and took on ‘Money’ Moicano with no training camp, no preparation, just because it’s the right thing to do, and made sure that the golden rule was followed, which is the show must go forward.”

According to him, Makhachev’s refusal to fight Topuria was nothing more than a rumor. He continued, “I also think it’s a little bit insulting to be the one to have to ask Islam, ‘Will you fight a ’45 pounder, considering that would make the third ’45 pounder that Islam was forced to face. And the only thing Islam has ever told us is that he himself would like to change weights. So if he himself is not allowed to do the one thing that they’re asking him to do three times over, I’m light on that.”

Nevertheless, Topuria’s chase seems never-ending. Even though he’s set to tackle Charles Oliveira at UFC 317, Makhachev has remained rent-free in his mind. But now, Islam has stated that if things seem feasible and the offer remains lucrative, he wouldn’t mind fighting again at lightweight. So, what are your thoughts regarding the popularity of Makhachev and Topuria? Is Topuria’s dream of fighting Makhachev hinging on winning the popularity contest?