It is safe to say that a true superfight slipped from our hands, right in front of our eyes. As Jack Della Maddalena steamrolled Belal Muhammad at UFC 315 to claim the welterweight gold, the prospect of seeing Ilia Topuria slugging it out against Islam Makhachev at UFC 317 also vanished. But why? Well, Dana White recently dropped bombs when he made it official that the Dagestani will vacate his 155lbs crown and move up to welterweight to fight the Aussie later this year. Deja vu, anyone?

Well, Topuria thinks that Makhachev not only ran away from the lightweight division because of him, but also feels that the Dagestani is being a massive hypocrite by getting the welterweight title shot right away.

“He is the biggest hypocrite I have ever seen. He said he didn’t want to give me the opportunity because I was the little guy, now he is the little guy looking for the same opportunity that I was looking for, a hypocrite,” Topuria thundered at a recent press conference.

And these comments have apparently really incensed Makhachev, who responded viciously and set the record straight about why he didn’t want to fight ‘El Matador’.

“Difference between me and you, that I cleaned top list in my division, moved to next, but you ran away from two contenders who had consecutive 5-9 wins in FW division. You are nobody in LW division, just a big mouth from Spain with nice haircut. Go get one W, and we can talk boy,” Makhachev wrote on X.

Makhachev, of course, had patently refused to fight Topuria right away after the latter moved up to lightweight straight away since he wanted ‘El Matador’ to prove himself at 155. So it is understandable why the Spanish-Georgian superstar is a bit mad at Makahchev for getting the title shot right away.

And Makhachev is correct– there were promising young contenders in the shape of Diego Lopes and Movsar Evloev at featherweight for the former champ to fight. But Topuria seemingly didn’t move up because he was ducking the young bucks. According to ‘El Matador’ and his team, the entire reason he moved up was because he just couldn’t make 145 anymore. But turnaround is fair play, so Topuria shouldn’t mind being called a duck by Makhachev.

Islam Makhachev leaves door open to lightweight return in irate response to Ilia Topuria

The fact remains that welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena has agreed to fight Islam Makhachev next. So that is that. ‘JDM’ wants to avenge his friend and Aussie compatriot, Alexander Volkanovski, for the two losses he suffered at the hands of the Dagestani. And there is nothing Topuria could do about that.

Not to mention there is another reason Makhachev didn’t want to fight Topuria, even though he didn’t discuss it at all in the aforementioned X post– the Dagestani was just tired of beating featherweights. Fifty percent of his title defenses came against the 145-pound champ, Alexander Volkanovski.

And Makhachev didn’t want to risk questions being raised about Topuria being the smaller man or people talking about how Topuria was making his 155-pound debut to take credit away from him. The most intriguing thing is– we don’t know for sure if Makhachev wants to come back to lightweight if he wins the 170-pound, or if he plans on staying there. But his X post does seem to indicate he would be open to coming back and winning the title if Topuria wins it at UFC 317. But first, ‘El Matador’ needs to win a title, which won’t be an easy thing to do against the legendary Charles Oliveira. What do you think about ___________?