'You fight when we tell you to fight'… Dan Hooker shares theory on Ilia Topuria giving up featherweight title
Yesterday at 09:57 AM
The UFC world was dealt a shock earlier this week when Dana White made a huge announcement regarding the featherweight division.
Following Topuria’s blockbuster win over Max Holloway at UFC 308 last October, ‘El Matador’ had an impromptu face-off with former foe, Alexander Volkanovski, suggesting a rematch between the two.
Rumors then began to circulate that Ilia Topuria was going to defend his featherweight strap against Alexander ‘The Great’ at UFC 314 this coming April in Miami.
Despite that, earlier this week the UFC boss, Dana White announced that Topuria has shockingly vacated his featherweight title and will be permanently moving up to 155lbs.
Dan Hooker believes the UFC stripped Topuria of his title for running from rematch
Although the former Australian champion doesn’t get his rematch against the 28-year-old Spaniard, White did reveal that the UFC 314 main event will be a vacant title fight between Volkanovski and Diego Lopes.
However, Volkanovski’s teammate, Dan Hooker has offered his theory as to why Topuria gave up the 145lb title, claiming that he continuously ran away from the planned rematch against ‘The Great’.
“He’s the guy that’s been inactive, I know that Volk’s been trying to fight Ilia and the UFC’s been trying to put the Ilia fight together for the longest time and he’s continuously said he can’t make the weight,” Hooker told Submission Radio.
“If his plan was to shift up and get a shot at the other title and the UFC was the one that wanted it to happen as well then there’s no way that they’d strip him of his title before he went and contested.
“I think they just took it off him as a bit of a show of force just to be like, brother, you fight when we tell you to fight, I think that’s more of what’s going on… I think it’s a show of force from the UFC, like, brother, if you keep turning down fights then you lose your title,” Hooker continued.
The lightweight title contender admitted that he wouldn’t be surprised if ‘El Matador’ is afforded a lightweight title shot straightaway, in spite of the fact that Makhachev’s team doesn’t want to fight him.
UFC no longer allowing double champion’s according to Diego Lopes
Topuria’s alleged reason for vacating the featherweight title is because he believes he has proved all he can prove at the weight class and because the weight cuts were beginning to take their toll on him.
However, featherweight title challenger, Diego Lopes has claimed that the UFC are no longer allowing double champions and this is the reason why Topuria has vacated the belt.
Following Conor McGregor‘s double champ feat back in 2016, it became the norm for UFC champion’s to claim they wanted to move up and down divisions.
This has began to cause an issue for the promotion as champion’s are declaring their plans to become double champion’s before making several defences in their own weight class.
