Since Ilia Topuria announced a few weeks ago his intention to move up to lightweightspeculation about his possible rivals has skyrocketed. In fact, some of them are already commenting on some technical aspects about a hypothetical future fight.
In principle, the one who should be weighing the situation is Charles Oliveira’s team. However, he has been Makhachev’s coach, Khabib Nurmagomedovwho has begun to compare the weights of fighters on a day-to-day basis. “Topuria’s coach said that he is usually at 82 kilos. I don’t think Islam has ever weighed so much. When camp starts two months before fighting, it is usually 80-81,” said the former UFC champion.
Islam Makhachev is a big fighter for his division. The one from Dagestan has plans to move up to welterweight. The only thing that prevents him from doing so is that in that division the champion is Belal Muhammad, with whom he has a certain affinity. Furthermore, the American’s style is a concern for his coach: “I don’t see Islam fighting Belal. And if he did, It would be very hard for me to train him to beat Belal. I would have to finish it. If you try to knock him down, it would be very difficult, and in striking it is also very difficult to hurt him“.
The future of Topuria, as we see, is in the air, although at this point all fighters take him seriously. There was a time when they thought that the Hispanic-Georgian spoke more than he acted. However, after beating Max Holloway there is no doubt that the featherweight champion is a serious problem in UFC.