{"id":415514,"date":"2026-01-17T14:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T14:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415514\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T14:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T14:50:07","slug":"ufc-champion-ilia-topuria-reveals-potential-timeline-for-octagon-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415514\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC champion Ilia Topuria reveals potential timeline for Octagon return"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC brass decided to not strip Ilia Topuria<\/a> of his lightweight title while he handles personal issues outside of the cage, which was probably the right call considering \u201cEl Matador\u201d is already planning to return between April and June of this year.<\/p>\n

Back in late-November, Topuria announced that he\u2019d be stepping away from fighting<\/a> to handle some affairs at home. Over the past few months, fight fans have come to learn that Topuria\u2019s hiatus revolves around a nasty divorce from his wife and traveling issues for his children. It hasn\u2019t been easy for the UFC lightweight king, especially after \u201cattempted extortion\u201d from his soon-to-be ex-wife over \u201cfalse allegations of domestic abuse.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

While some originally thought Topuria\u2019s ongoing divorce could keep him on the shelf until the end of 2026, it now appears the superstar fighter is looking to return in just a few months. On Friday, Topuria answered a few questions on social media and revealed that he plans to make his comeback in April, May, or June, and that it would come against the winner of the Paddy Pimblett vs. Justin Gaethje interim lightweight title fight at UFC 324<\/a> next weekend.<\/p>\n

Topuria, 28, was on a legendary run inside UFC\u2019s Octagon before stepping away late last year. Not only does he carry an undefeated UFC record of 9-0 into 2026, but Topuria is coming off three-straight incredible knockouts over UFC legends Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway, and Charles Oliveira. It will be nice to see Topuria defend his lightweight title at least twice this year so returning in late spring would be ideal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC brass decided to not strip Ilia Topuria of his lightweight title while he handles personal issues outside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,139445,702],"class_list":["post-415514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}