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Newly minted UFC BMF Champion Max Holloway wants to fight UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria. He has wanted this for awhile now.
After his show-stopping knockout of Justin Gaethje at UFC 300 on Saturday, Holloway is now not only ranked number two in the featherweight rankings, he moved into the top 10 of the lightweight rankings (#9).
So many people just assumed that Max Holloway had earned his shot at Ilia Topuria’s belt.
One of them who wasn’t so impressed, however, was Ilia Topuria.
“Well, it was good. Nothing special to be honest,” Topuria said of the Holloway’s impressive UFC 300 win. “The ending was only an exchange of punches without any strategy. Both just throwing punches,” adding that Holloway would be an “easy fight.”
On Monday on The MMA Hour, Topuria, who Holloway claims ducked him en route to winning the belt, said, ”
“He can say whatever he wants to say — that I’m running and he’s the bull and this and that,” said Topuria. “Come on, man. Just bring the same energy you had in the last 10 seconds, but bring it in the first 10 seconds, and we’ll see what’s going to happen. Let’s bang and we’ll see what’s going to happen. I know I will be the first one to take his lights out. I know that I’m way better than him everywhere. I can do with him whatever I want to do. I can ask him, ‘How do you want me to finish you? You want me to knock you out? You want me to submit you? What do you want me to do?'”
He did, however, stipulate that he would only fight Max Holloway if the BMF title was on the line, otherwise, “I don’t want him at all.”
“That’s not a very ‘BMF’ way to say it,” Holloway responded on The Jim Rome Show. “A ‘BMF’ wouldn’t say, ‘I’m not going to fight this guy unless…’ That’s kind of un-‘BMF.’ Doesn’t sound ‘BMF’ the way he’s trying to demand it and saying, ‘I’m not going to fight.’
“A ‘BMF’ fights whatever, fights whoever, whenever, any weight, any time, and that’s not a tone of a ‘BMF.’”
Holloway then proceeded to say, “People always ask me, ‘What are your thoughts on Ilia?’ The only thing that comes to my mind is it’s questionable. The dude is super questionable.”
Naturally, Topuria responded back on X (Twitter).
“The only thing questionable about me is whether I finish you by ko or submission,” he wrote. “I just beat the guy that beat you not once, not twice, but 3 times. You now have the one thing that keeps you relevant and that would grant you a money fight, the BMF belt.
“I no longer fight for money but for legacy. Winning that belt while holding my title will cement me as the first. The first to hold both belts. The first to knock out volk and what most certainly will happen when we fight, the first one to put you to sleep.
“Something to calm you down is this: God doesn’t shame anyone. You will have a worthy defeat against a champion who will be remembered for eternity. I decide who, when, and where. If you don’t like the terms I’m sure [Brian] Ortega will oblige.”
Just let these two fight already.