Ilia Topuria and his team have recently gotten extremely vocal about issues with cutting weight. According to the camp, it gets significantly harder every time ‘El Matador’ tries to make it to 145 pounds, and as such, he’s deciding to move up to the lightweight division. Meanwhile, another fighter who’s also dealt with weight-cutting issues of his own, Robert Whittaker, has encouraged the Georgian-Spaniard to jump to the 155-pound division.

‘The Reaper’ recently mentioned that he was “playing with the idea” of possibly making a move to the light heavyweight division, citing the brutal weight-cutting process. He’s been doing it for a long time and understands, but that’s not the only reason why Robert Whittaker has sided with Ilia Topuria on the latter’s decision to move up a division. After beating the likes of Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway, who dominated the featherweight division, there’s not much he has left to prove as a 145’er.

“If the weight cut’s real, like, if he’s really struggling with a weight cut, he can go up,” Robert Whittaker stated on the ‘MMArcade Podcast’. “He beat Volk and Holloway, dude… I am happy with him going up. Those two dudes ran the division, like clean, ran the division.” Also, the Aussie star is inherently curious to see the size of a lightweight Ilia Topuria and how he compares to other lightweights like Islam Makhachev in size.

“I’d like to see him go up and see what that looks like, see how his box-grappling works against those bigger dudes, see how big he gets in those fights because he’s obviously a chiseled guy. Yeah, I am curious. I am very curious.”

Meanwhile, Islam Makhachev doesn’t want to entertain another featherweight champion’s double champ aspirations because he’s done it twice already. According to the lightweight champion, there’s nothing to gain from fighting a smaller guy in Ilia Topuria. So who does the Georgian-Spaniard fight when he makes the jump to the next division? Well, ‘El Matador’ has another top guy in mind.

Ilia Topuria is eyeing a fight against a former lightweight champion

Now that the chances of becoming a simultaneous two-weight champion seem unlikely due to Islam Makhachev’s refusal to fight Ilia Topuria, ‘El Matador’ has hinted at wanting to fight one of the Dagestan native’s former rivals. In fact, Topuria mentioned wanting to make his way to a lightweight title shot by fighting former champion Charles Oliveira, who’s also in contention for a possible title shot in 2025.

“I’d like to move up a weight class. Since Islam [Makhachev] fights in January, I’d like to face the division’s top contender, Charles Oliveira,” Ilia Topuria told Spanish radio El Partidazo de COPE, a couple a few days ago. But what will happen to his featherweight title? Well, Topuria’s camp claims that he might need to vacate the title because he has no intentions to defend it.

“I suppose if he goes to another weight class, the belt is going to be vacant.. and don’t think he’s going to defend the featherweight title. I think he wants to go to lightweight. I don’t think they give the opportunity to fight directly for the belt, but he wants to fight with the ranked guys to come for the belt,” Topuria’s coach Jorge Climent stated during an interview with ‘Submission Radio’.

What do you think about the prospect of getting to watch Ilia Topuria fight in the lightweight division? Drop your comments below.