Ilia Topuria could step right back into another title fight against Justin Gaethje, if what Jon Anik is hearing through the grapevine is true.<\/p>\n
Anik is UFC\u2019s main play-by-play commentator and is no stranger to discussing controversial topics<\/a> or insider information. In a new video on the Anik Bros. YouTube channel, Jon suggested there was a real interest in setting up an immediate rematch of UFC White House<\/a>\u2019s epic Topuria vs. Gaethje fight (watch highlights<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cI think there are internal conversations to potentially try to do Gaethje vs. Topuria 2,\u201d Anik said. \u201cA lot of people wonder aloud, \u2018What is next for Ilia Topuria?\u2019 And there\u2019s certainly an obvious foundation for a fight between him and Paddy Pimblett. But, if you have Ilia Topuria, as a fight promoter, would you not want to think about putting him back in a championship setting, given how big UFC Freedom 250<\/a> was? I think there\u2019s strong consideration there.\u201d<\/p>\n Gaethje has consistently said he\u2019s not interested in rematching Topuria considering how dominant his win was<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be up to Justin \u2026 I say that with all due respect,\u201d Anik said, before adding, \u201cI think Justin is far more concerned with his show money than with who he\u2019s actually fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what Ilia Topuria\u2019s timeline is,\u201d Anik concluded. \u201cBut my non-informed speculation is that Gaethje vs. Topuria 2, a rematch, would be absolutely enormous, and I guess, predictively, that\u2019s what I think is going to happen. At least right now, as we sit here in late August.\u201d<\/p>\n It will be interesting to see what the UFC decides on. Topuria vs. Pimblett has never made more sense, and it would be huge as well. Arman Tsarukyan versus Gaethje would also be big if \u201cBatman\u201d<\/a> gets past Mauricio Ruffy at UFC 331.<\/a><\/p>\n So, the promotion is in a good position to have several big fights on the horizon, it just need to figure out which would be bigger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ilia Topuria could step right back into another title fight against Justin Gaethje, if what Jon Anik is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,179146,125620,1647],"class_list":["post-882716","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-on-paramount","tag-ufc-white-house-2026","tag-upcoming-ufc-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882716","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=882716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}