His recent Oliveira victory has shot him up in the pound-for-pound rankings as he has overtaken Islam Makhachev<\/a>, who moves up to face the top welterweight, Jack Della Maddalena, as P4P number one.<\/p>\n A new challenger for his recently won lightweight crown is yet to be decided, but Paddy Pimblett<\/a> and Arman Tsarukyan<\/a> have been arguing over who deserves it most.<\/p>\n PFL champion slams Ilia Topuria and claims he is not the best lightweight in the UFC<\/p>\n As Makhachev has made the move up to the 170 lb division, some have championed \u2018El Matador\u2019 as the best lightweight in the world after his successful capture of the vacant belt.<\/p>\n However, a fellow champion at 155 lbs in the Professional Fighters League (PFL), Usman Nurmagomedov, has hit back at the idea that Ilia is the world\u2019s best.<\/p>\n In a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Nurmagomedov did not place himself at the top of the tree just yet, but took issue with the r\u00e9sum\u00e9 of the Spaniard.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI don\u2019t want to put myself (at top) in lightweight because Islam is still in lightweight. He\u2019s not moving. After he (moves), then we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n \u201cCome on, Ilia Topuria, how he can be lightweight number one in the world? He cannot be. He did only one fight. I have 19 fights in lightweight (division). I beat former champions. I beat champions.\u201d<\/p>\n The 27-year-old has been waiting for his UFC debut, as he did not want to find himself in a position where he would have to fight his training partner, Makhachev, in the same division.<\/p>\n While he believes his longtime friend and sparring partner is the best, the Eagles MMA fighter may have a claim to the best in the world title soon.<\/p>\n \u201cI think my resume is better than him. How many fights does he have? 14? I have 14 finishes in my career,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter I finish this guy (Paul Hughes), I will call myself the best lightweight.\u201d<\/p>\n Usman Nurmagomedov rips into PFL opponent Paul Hughes and makes Conor McGregor comparison<\/p>\n The anticipated rematch between Nurmagomedov and Paul Hughes is scheduled to take place on 3 October in Dubai.<\/p>\n This second fight follows their epic January encounter, where the two battled it out for the belt, with Hughes losing the fight by majority decision, which he believes was unfair.<\/p>\n But the score will finally be settled after nine months of waiting, and Usman has already fired some shots at his opponent.<\/p>\n Speaking to MMA Junkie, the Russian fighter dismissed his opponent\u2019s complaints.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cBrother, it doesn\u2019t matter what he\u2019s going to say after losing. He\u2019s looking like Conor (McGregor). Khabib (Nurmagomedov) took his soul, and he keeps going to talk, but nobody cares.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody saw what happened. Same thing. Yes, he showed people he was so close to punch me, he was so close to win, but he didn\u2019t do anything for that. He saved his energy because he was scared to get tired. He wasn\u2019t going to wrestle, he wasn\u2019t going to come to the clinch.\u201d<\/p>\n He is yet to be beaten as a professional, with a record of 19-0. Still, the Irishman Hughes, after the performance at the beginning of the year, looks the biggest threat to his undefeated accomplishment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A current PFL champion has dismissed claims that Ilia Topuria is the best lightweight in the UFC after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,17499,785,5963,85,787],"class_list":["post-117705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-ilia-topuria","tag-mma","tag-pfl","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ilia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2222692229-1024x685.jpg\")
Photo by Cooper Neill\/Zuffa LLC<\/p>\n