Alexander Volkanovski respects Ilia Topuria by freeing up the UFC title

MIAMI – Alexander Volkanovsky admits that he didn’t expect Ilia Topria to abandon the UFC featherweight belt.

Topuria chose to move to lightweight with a 145 pound title left. As a result, Volkanovski (26-5 MMA, 13-4 UFC) will face Diego Lopez (26-6 MMA, 5-1 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 314 main event (ESPN+ pay-per-view) at Kaseya Center, Miami.

“The Great” thought Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) would try to chase dual champion status.

“I was pretty surprised he was free,” Volkanovsky told MMA Junkie and other reporters on Wednesday at UFC 314 Media Day. “I knew he wanted to chase the lightweight title. I heard him say it, but I didn’t think he would give up on the belt that easily. He was thinking of giving up on it, so you have to respect it.

Volkanovski lost his featherweight title to Topuria in a knockout at UFC 298 last February. After Topuria defended the title with Max Holloway’s knockout at UFC 308, he welcomed the idea of ​​a rematch with Volkanovski, but he shook the changing division.

“Obviously I wanted that fight. I wanted to get that victory back,” Volkanovsky said. “I was hoping to fight history in October, maybe December a little while later. It was starting to drag on. I was like, ‘It’s okay, if he’s waiting, I’ll do some provisional to someone and then we’ll fight.’ It reached that point.

Volkanovski does not rule out the possibility of getting the chance to revenge his defeat to Toplia.

“I’m going to be that active and defending champion,” Volkanovski said. “Imagine that after he finishes the fight, he’s going to win the belt, we run it after we do this little title and we’re hoping we’ll have some fights at the point he fights.