Ilia Topuria, formerly known as ‘El Matador,’ had his first stint in combat sports when he was in school and started practicing Greco-Roman wrestling. Little did he know at that age that it would one day take him to the Octagon. The former featherweight fighter who was a cashier at Stradivarius at one point in his life, began his professional MMA career at the age of 18, debuting with a submission victory over Francisco Javier Asprilla in April 2015, in Valencia, Spain.

At 23 he finally entered the gates of UFC in 2020 and won all his fights inside the octagon. The 16-0-0, now called ‘La Leyenda’, is the now-former featherweight champ at just 28 with dreams of becoming a lightweight champion as well. However, Topuria also has another goal—to retire by the time he is 30.

He revealed the same to a Spanish broadcaster, Juanma Castaño: “I’m 27, I hope to be out by 30.” Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson alluded to the same, speaking to Luke Rockhold. Red Corner MMA shared a video clip from the interview, where the duo discussed the same.

Jackson said, “he doesn’t wanna fight a contender, he wanna go straight to the belt. You know what that means? He is getting ready to retire.” Rockhold was shocked, saying, “Already?” Then Rockhold said, “Well, you have a point there ’cause he has been talking about wanting a fight in a very famous Spanish arena that holds 80,000 people. He previously said that on Joe Rogan.”

Back in 2024, Topuria spoke about moving up a weight class, to a Spanish broadcast: “Right now, in my division, I no longer have the motivation to defend the belt. Now I want to move up a category, and we’ll see how everything goes.” After that, he followed the same up while speaking to the Patrick Bet David podcast on 11th April. When PBD asked how long he intends on fight, ‘La Leyenda’ said, “Until I [no longer] enjoy it to be honest”.

However, his dreams of getting a second belt in lightweight might be difficult because of what is going on in the division right now. Islam Makhachev is the champ sitting at the top of the lightweight category, but he does not want to fight Topuria. But Topuria seems confident of getting the shot. What exactly is happening?

Despite Team Khabib’s final verdict, Ilia Topuria is in training camp

Islam Makhachev does not want to fight Ilia Topuria for obvious reasons—he does not want to face another featherweight fighter who moved up. Team Khabib, including Makhachev, wants the 27-year-old to earn his title shot by beating another top dog in the lightweight division. The Dagestani Hall of Famer said, “We’ll fight if we have to,” on MatchTV. “In terms of my fighting career, I’m not interested in fighting Topuria at all. He’s in a different weight class. I’ll beat him, and what will that do for me?” He explained that this fight would not benefit Makhachev in terms of legacy.

On the other hand, Topuria dropped a huge update about his training on his X account and wrote, “The camp has begun”. The 28-year-old left just breadcrumbs for the fans, but thankfully, Álvaro Colmenero and Ariel Helwani immediately quoted ‘La Leyenda’s post and said that he will probably fight for a title during International Fight Week. But since Makhachev does not want to fight him, who might be his opponent?

Well, he could fight Paddy Pimblett since the latter has defeated Michael Chandler and is now in the top 10. They’ve already been rivals since 2022, so this fight might be a possibility. Other than that, we have fan favorite and former champ Charles Oliveira, who called out Topuria after the latter’s move to lightweight.  What do you think will happen to Ilia Topuria’s goals now? Will he retire by 30 or have to wait for his second title shot and retire later?