Ilia Topuria is not the first featherweight champion to surrender his 145-pound crown.
And much like the Conor McGregor scenario at UFC 223 back in early 2018, “La Leyenda” remained featherweight kingpin until the first punch was thrown in the Alex Volkanovski vs. Diego Lopes title fight atop the UFC 314 fight card last weekend in Miami.
So did he vacate the title … or was he stripped? That depends on who you ask.
“If you’re gonna make [Topuria] the number one contender, you would do that in the same press release that you stripped him in,” retired middleweight, Chael Sonnen, told his YouTube subscribers. “Which by the way, is another part of this story that’s gotten very weird. I realize the official tale is to be told that Ilia vacated the title. I am aware that’s how we need to tell this as fight fans, but if you weren’t told that as fight fans, you just went and looked at what happened, you would have no choice but to realize he was stripped.”
Topuria, 28, is chasing a lightweight title fight against current champion, Islam Makhachev.
“There was nothing about the way that played out, including the fact that he was no longer champion, he was no longer champion on Saturday night when the bell rang,” Sonnen continued. “It might seem like a small detail, but if you look at what happened, he was stripped. They’ve all decided to go along to get along and use the word vacated, and it does matter. It matters to the fighters for whatever silly reason, I’m just sharing it does matter. I’m not willing to play along. He didn’t vacate the belt, Ilia got stripped.”
Maybe it’s because Topuria “said no to everything.”
Topuria (16-0) ditched the featherweight division after scoring back-to-back knockout victories over Alex Volkanovski and Max Holloway. Unfortunately, “La Leyenda” made the jump with nothing but a promise and a dream and as of this writing, has yet to book his Makhachev title fight.
Instead, he’ll have to play the waiting game.
