Dana White Gets His ‘Sphere’ Main Event for UFC 306; Ilia Topuria Confirms Talks After Max Holloway Fight Rumors

The historic UFC 300 has delivered everything that the UFC CEO, Dana White had promised. However, among all the spectacular fights that took place, there is a fight that stood out from the rest; the BMF title fight between Max Holloway and Justin Gaethje. Holloway won by a devastating KO at the end of the 5th round and the newly crowned UFC BMF champ didn’t take time to mention the featherweight champ, Ilia Topuria.

Given that Topuria’s name has been all over the media after the callout, there were questions about when the UFC champ would make his first title defense. MMA journalist, Ariel Helwani, would ask just that given the anticipation of that question in a recent airing of “The MMA Hour”. “El Matador’s” answer could have just opened up Dana White’s plans for his next big event.

Ilia Topuria talks about the date for his next possible title defense

The UFC is en route to hosting the UFC event at the Las Vegas sphere on the Mexican Independence Day on September 14th, 2024. The event has had everyone stoked and quite a lot of fighters have shown an interest in fighting in the sphere. However, during a recent episode of  “The MMA Hour”, UFC featherweight claimed that he might be in talks to fight at the highly sought-after UFC 3o6 event.

When asked the question about his return, Ilia Topuria stated, “Yeah, maybe I think they want me to fight in the sphere and September. So we’ll see how everything’s gonna… how they’re gonna figure out how to change at the same time we want to go and in Spain we want to bring the UFC here and in the first trimester of the next year. So that’s one of the reasons I want to fight like in September and October. To be able to fight again in the first trimester of the year.” Topuria’s opponent could possibly be the newly crowned UFC champ.

Later on in the interview, “El Matador” took a dig at the newly crowned UFC bantamweight saying, “Without the BMF belt, I don’t want to fight Max at all. If not, I’m gonna fight with Volk who deserves more than him, the rematch. He’s been saying ‘right now I have a lot of options’, he doesn’t have any options. I’m the champion right now, I choose the date, I choose the place. Whenever I want him, he has to be ready.”

There are certainly quite a lot of fighters who are interested in fighting at the UFC 306 card. However, there is a UFC champ who does not give into the hype of the stage and puts out some conditions for fighting in the Sphere.

Sean O’Malley on not wanting to fight at the Sphere

A recent airing of “The Fighter and The Kid” with Brendan Schaub and Bryan Callen, hosted guest and UFC bantamweight champ, Sean O’Malley. Among other conversations, the duo asked the champ if he would fight at The Sphere at UFC 306, given that there are a few rumors of “O’Malley” defending his title at the event. However, to everyone’s surprise, the bantamweight champ did not seem to keen on fighting at the event.

O’Malley, during the podcast episode, stated, “I know that The Sphere’s a weird arena and a weird setup. But if it’s a small cage, count me out. I’m not fighting in a small f***ing cage.”

Who do you believe will headline the UFC 306 card at the Sphere at the Las Vegas Sphere on September 14th, 2024? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.