![\"Islam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Islam-Makhachev-vs.-Ilia-Topuria-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIslam Makhachev\u2019s coach likes what he has seen from Ilia Topuria.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Topuria captured his second UFC title at the age of 28. After becoming the first fighter to knock out Max Holloway in a successful UFC featherweight title defense, \u201cEl Matador\u201d captured the 155-pound gold by starching Charles Oliveira. Topuria vs. Oliveira was booked for the vacant lightweight title after Makhachev vacated the gold in an effort to chase the UFC Welterweight Championship.<\/p>\n
American Kickboxing Academy head coach Javier Mendez spoke to Danny Segura on MMAJunkie<\/a>\u2018s \u201cHabelmos MMA,\u201d and he heaped praise on Topuria. Mendez also sounded more open to the idea of Makhachev vs. Topuria in the near future.<\/p>\n \u201cI like what he\u2019s been doing,\u201d Mendez said. \u201cHe\u2019s doing a good job at getting people to want to watch the fight. The more Ilia does, the more people want to see this fight. I like everything he\u2019s doing as a fighter. He\u2019s very strong and doesn\u2019t care about the weight. I think now it\u2019s a great fight for us. The first thing Islam wanted was a legacy fight \u2013 he wanted the welterweight title. Now if we win the welterweight title, we can go down or he can come up. That\u2019s what I say, but if the UFC doesn\u2019t like it, it\u2019s not happening. But first we need to win.\u201d<\/p>\n Islam Makhachev is expected to challenge Jack Della Maddalena<\/a> for the top welterweight prize in the UFC before the end of 2025. Rumors have swirled of a possible November date in Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n As for Ilia Topuria, there are a slew of options in terms of who his first lightweight title challenger will be. The likes of Arman Tsarukyan, Justin Gaethje, and Paddy Pimblett appear to be viable options. A possible rematch with Max Holloway will have to wait, as \u201cBlessed\u201d revealed he suffered an injury<\/a> during his UFC 318 bout with Dustin Poirier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Islam Makhachev\u2019s coach likes what he has seen from Ilia Topuria. Topuria captured his second UFC title at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-43582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43582","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=43582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}