In September, in Las Vegas, Diego Lopes dominated Brian Ortega, achieved the biggest victory of his career, and thus entered once and for all the race for the UFC featherweight belt. However, before he could even think of a fight, featherweight champion Ilia Topuria revealed his desire to move to lightweight to find himself a new challenge. So does that mean we won’t be getting a Lopes vs. Topuria fight?

Well, according to the Brazilian fighter, the duo are destined to fight. Speaking to ESPN MMA back in October, Diego Lopes made the major claim that he will surely be fighting Ilia Topuria in the future. In fact, he even made the major prediction that when he does fight Topuria, it will be like ‘El Matador’ would be going against a wall. But why? That’s because the duo will exchange several blows, and he is willing to absorb it all. Lopes said, “[Ilia] likes to fight at close range. Although I have long arms, I do much better at close range… I think that we’re both going to clash several times, and if he comes forward, he’s going to crash into a wall. I like to exchange blows; he does too, and so definitely it would be a fight that people would be very excited to see.”

But for that, there is still a lot of waiting to do. It is worth noting that while Topuria set his sights on a possible fight against Charles Oliveira, the #3 ranked featherweight, without wasting time, tried to make himself available to the company to face Alexander Volkanovski. On his official account in ‘X,’ the jiu-jitsu specialist challenged the former UFC featherweight champion to a possible fight. Attentive to Topuria’s move, Lopes anticipated and passed the responsibility to Volkanovski, allowing him to choose where and when the possible fight between the two could take place.

This was not the first time that the Brazilian challenged ‘The Great.’ Previously, Diego Lopes even expressed his interest in facing him in his home country of Australia. After all, the fighter’s pursuit of such a big fight is valid, as he is number three in the UFC featherweight rankings. On the other hand, Alexander Volkanovski is in first place in the rankings, only behind champion Ilia Topuria. This fight could even earn him the title if the Georgian puts his division change plan into practice. However, this is one little twist.

Ilia Topuria rules out abandoning the featherweight title

Taking to his official X account, the UFC featherweight champion reinforced his intention to compete in the lightweight division but did not define when he would move up a category for good. In any case, the Spanish-Georgian fighter ruled out any possibility of abandoning the featherweight belt to embark on the possible adventure to the lightweight division of the Dana White-led promotion.

He wrote, “I will not leave the title vacant. The decision to move up to the next category is entirely mine. I haven’t had any conversations with the UFC yet, so everything is still to be decided. Stop celebrating because I’m not going anywhere. I have conquered my division, and I will do the same in the next one.” Counting on Ilia’s definitive change of division, Diego Lopes challenged Alexander Volkanovski to a fight, which would be worth the vacant featherweight belt.

However, with this tweet, ‘El Matador’ sent a direct message to the rest of the competitors in his category that it will not be easy for them to win the title. So, maybe the fight between Volkanovski and Lopes can be made for a title fight instead. What do you think? Will Topuria be dethroned off the featherweight throne anytime soon? Let us know in the comments.

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