Featherweight champion Ilia Topuria seems to have found himself on lightweight champion Islam Makhachev‘s bad books. The 27-year-old Georgian-Spaniard audaciously claimed that he could wreak havoc in the 155-pound division and easily beat some of the division’s best. ‘El Matador’ even listed a few names, including Makhachev, and claimed that he could beat them all “in the same night.” However, these comments appeared distasteful to the Dagestan native.

As a warning to Ilia Topuria, Islam Makhachev stated, “If Topuria continues in the same spirit, he may play himself out. Something may happen,” in an interview with ‘MatchTV’. “So far I have not seen anyone cross any personal boundaries, so far nothing like that has happened.” Meanwhile, Topuria has also hinted at his wish to get that double-champ status as well, but the Russian doesn’t see that happening anytime soon.

Instead of making comparisons with lightweight contenders and talking about gunning for the 155-pound belt, Makhachev has suggested the featherweight king attend his own division first, given that he has his first title defense coming up in a matter of days. “He needs to focus on his weight class and defending his belt at least once,” Makhachev added.

While he took swipes at lightweight stars, Ilia Topuria didn’t even spare his upcoming opponent, Max Holloway. The Georgian-Spaniard shared a shared prediction of his first title defense at UFC 308, predicting a first-time knockout loss for ‘Blessed’. Interestingly, a lightweight contender believes ‘El Matador’ could score an upset win.

Lightweight star puts his money on Ilia Topuria to beat Max Holloway

When Max Holloway was set to fight Justin Gaethje at UFC 300, nobody expected ‘Blessed’ to produce the kind of knockout win that he did. It was truly one of the most thrilling moments ever in a UFC fight as the Hawaiian native earned his finish at 4 minutes and 59 seconds of the final round. Similarly, ‘The Highlight’ believes Holloway could be in for a rude awakening against Ilia Topuria, but why? Well, Gaethje believes that the BMF champion’s experience may not be able to help him against the featherweight champ’s powerful strikes.

“Max has been there for so many times, he’s got so much experience. He’s an absolute dog, his competitive spirit is as high as anybody that’s ever stepped in there so you’re not gonna run through him, no matter what,” Justin Gaethje told ‘The Schmo’. “It’s a crazy game and Topuria has power so if he touches him, he could knock him out. But we’ll see, Topuria was very impressive versus Volkanovski, so we’ll see how he looks.”

We’re just a few days away from UFC 308 and we’ll find out if Ilia Topuria wins the legacy fight against Max Holloway. Nevertheless, what do you think about Topuria’s comments? Was the lightweight champion right to call him out? Drop your comments below.