{"id":699026,"date":"2026-05-28T01:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/699026\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T01:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:36:08","slug":"why-isnt-ilia-topuria-fighting-islam-makhachev-ufc-doesnt-want-to-make-it-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/699026\/","title":{"rendered":"Why isn\u2019t Ilia Topuria fighting Islam Makhachev? \u2018UFC doesn\u2019t want to make it happen\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Now, Topuria has changed his tune in a bit. He no longer is blaming Makhachev for avoiding the matchup and instead thinks its the UFC\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI don\u2019t think that it\u2019s because of him that the fight is not happening,\u201d Topuria told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pvFsy-LGdLI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DeepCut<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/ufc\/490819\/ilia-topuria-blames-ufc-for-islam-makhachev-superfight-not-happening-next\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMA Fighting<\/a>). \u201cI truly believe that is that the UFC doesn\u2019t want to make it happen. I think so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cBut at the same time trying to teach something to the UFC how to make the fights and all that, that\u2019s a little bit difficult because the answer they have, which is correct, is that we don\u2019t need your opinion [laughs]. We build whatever we have in our way. So we do it however we want it. And it\u2019s completely understandable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Why would the UFC be against such a high-profile matchup? Recently, the promotion has taken more of a stance against super fight matchups between champions, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2025\/2\/21\/24370209\/ilia-topuria-vacated-ufc-belt-with-no-double-champion-move-up-you-have-to-vacate-your-title-lopes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">forcing vacant belts rather than simultaneous titles<\/a>. Perhaps the promotion doesn\u2019t want to hold up two very competitive division \u2026 or maybe the cost is just too high.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Either way, Topuria isn\u2019t overly upset. He would like to fight Makhachev but doesn\u2019t see the fight as mandatory for his career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cFor me personally, it wouldn\u2019t change anything [if this fight doesn\u2019t happen],\u201d Topuria said. \u201cI don\u2019t hate him, I don\u2019t have anything personal for him. The thing is that he achieved great things in the sport. He\u2019s a double champion like me. And if you do that crossover, me and Islam, it will be one of the biggest fights in the UFC history without any doubt. But if that fight never happens, I will be happy and proud about myself. Anyways, I don\u2019t need Islam to feel realized or to feel happy or to feel proud about myself, you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now, Topuria has changed his tune in a bit. He no longer is blaming Makhachev for avoiding the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,125620],"class_list":["post-699026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-white-house-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699026","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=699026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}