Featherweight champion Ilia Topuria has been talking about a potential move to the lightweight division following his first successful title defense at UFC 308. However, middleweight prospect Bo Nickal has given an inside scoop about Dana White’s plans for ‘El Matador’, and it involves a pretty high-profile rematch at UFC 314 against former champion Alexander Volkanovski, which Nickal wasn’t necessarily interested in.

“They just announced Ilia and ‘Volk’… in April, [UFC] 314,” Bo Nickal stated on his YouTube podcast. While the 28-year-old leaned more towards Topuria fighting Islam Makhachev fight, he understood why the UFC was dialed in on giving the Aussie a rematch. After all, the former 145lbs kingpin had done the same for Max Holloway when he was champion, without any hesitation at all.

“Ilia and Islam would be sick. I don’t know about Ilia and ‘Volk’ rematch. I mean, I get it.’ Volk’ had to rematch Holloway a bunch of times,” Bo Nickal added. While doubling down on the fact that Dana White will announce this fight soon, Bo Nickal also predicted a fate for Volk, similar to his previous encounter against Topuria.

“He [Ilia] knocked him [Volkanovski] bad, bad. I think I love ‘Volk’. He’s great, but I don’t see a path to victory for him,” Bo Nickal added. “It’s official. I know for a fact. I don’t know if it was announced for a fact, but I know that it’s happening for a fact.”

Despite Nickal’s grim prediction for Volkanovski, we shouldn’t forget how dominant the Aussie star was when he was holding the featherweight belt. With the same mentality, a determined Volkanovski recently doubled down on his quest back to UFC title glory.

Alexander Volkanovski wants his “belt back”

Following two consecutive knockout losses, during which he lost the chance to win the lightweight title and losing his featherweight title, Alexander Volkanovski decided to take some time away from action. For a while, there was no clue about what lies ahead of his UFC career. But before Ilia Topuria’s fight against Max Holloway, Volkanovski cleared the air about his next plan, which was to fight the winner of UFC 308, which was ‘El Matador’.

However, he still wasn’t sure if the UFC would hand him a title shot immediately after his return because he even claimed that fighting Holloway could be on the cards, too. “If Ilia wins, I’ll be fighting Ilia. But can I guarantee Sydney? I don’t know. Would Max fight me in Australia? One hundred percent he would,” Vokanovski told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “But I think he’d probably fight for the BMF title (next).” 

So if what Bo Nickal claims, which he is confident about, turns out to be true, then maybe UFC has given in to Volkanovski’s demands. Well, we still need to wait for an official announcement. In the meantime, let us know what you think about Bo Nickal’s revelation about a potential Ilia Topuria vs. Alexander Volkanovski rematch.