Ilia Topuria Vacates UFC Featherweight Title, Will Move Up To Lightweight

Ilia Topuria Vacates UFC Featherweight Title, Will Move Up To Lightweight

UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria will vacate his title and move up to lightweight. UFC CEO Dana White announced the move on Instagram Live.

The UFC featherweight title will not sit vacant for long. At UFC 314, former champion Alexander Volkanovski will fight Diego Lopes for the vacant undisputed title.

Topuria’s move up to lightweight should not be seen as a surprise. The 28-year-old has expressed his desire to move up to 155 pounds on multiple occasions. The driving factor behind his decision was his weight cut. Although, the chance to become a two-division champion certainly makes that decision easier.

The immediate future for Topuria seems promising amid his weight class change. Ariel Helwani has reported the UFC is working on booking Topuria in a lightweight title fight against Islam Makhachev.

The plan is for Ilia Topuria to fight Islam Makhachev later this year, I'm told. Perhaps as soon as IFW.

Lots to digest and dissect. Will upload a quick reax video to the channel shortly.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) February 20, 2025

A fight between Makhachev and Topuria is one of the most compelling fights that can be made. It does lose a bit of shine now that it will not be a pair of champions fighting one another. Still, it will determine who deserves to be the top-ranked pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

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Topuria’s featherweight run will go down in the history books. In one of the UFC’s premier weight classes, he went 8-0 with six finish victories. That culminated with knockout victories over two of the best featherweight’s of all-time, Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway.

The one downside to Topuria’s decision is that fans will never get to see how long his featherweight title reign would have lasted.

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