UFC goes Hollywood! Ilia Topuria drops cinematic teaser to announce Alexander Volkanovski fight held at Los Angeles

Ilia Topuria announced his title fight against Alexander Volkanovski by releasing a teaser on X.

UFC goes Hollywood! Ilia Topuria drops cinematic teaser to announce Alexander Volkanovski fight held at Los Angeles

Ilia Topuria announced title fight with a teaser (Via X)

Dana White recently announced some PPV headliners for the new year 2024 through X. There, he announced that Ilia Topuria would be taking on Alexander Volkanovski in February for the featherweight title. Soon after White’s announcement, Topuria released a Hollywood-style teaser for the fight on X. He captioned it with his prediction and said that it would be a first-round finish.

The video featured Ilia Topuria listening to Alexander Volkanovski’s critical comments on television. But he paid no attention to it and was caressing a rose in his hands. Later he put the rose into a box numbered ’15’ symbolizing that it’ll be his 15th win. Then the teaser ended with the announcement – Topuria vs Volkanovski, February, Los Angeles, California, USA. However, Dana White didn’t mention the exact date or location of the event.

YouTube video

Ilia Topuria and Alexander Volkanovski were previously expected to compete by January in UFC 297. But since Volkanovski took a short-notice fight against Islam Makhachev to save the card of UFC 294, he needed time to recover.

FS Video

Although Volkanovski wanted the fight in January, the UFC pushed it a month behind. Volkanovski wants to be the man to hand Topuria his first loss as he’s undefeated with a record of 14 wins.

Alexander Volkanovski lost his last fight against Makhachev via knockout while Topuria won his last fight against Josh Emmett via unanimous decision. However, Volkanovski lost in the lightweight division, and in the featherweight division, he won over Yair Rodriguez in his previous title defense.

Ilia Topuria vs. Sean O’Malley – What are the possibilities?

Ilia Topuria and Sean O’Malley are two young fighters who’ve already risen to the division’s top. Sean O’Malley produced an exhilarating underdog win against Aljamain Sterling to grab the bantamweight title.

On the other hand, Topuria was tearing through the featherweight division at ease. The two have gone back and forth on X for a while eyeing a potential matchup between them.

Ilia Topuria (via Marca.com)

It all started with Topuria’s tweet about The Korean Zombie and Max Holloway fight. In it, he mentioned Sean O’Malley to keep rising so that one day they can meet in the octagon. To which, O’Malley replied I’ve risen and it was Topuria’s turn as the former won the bantamweight title.

Later, O’Malley wanted him to get through Volk first because the super-fight makes sense only if it is champion vs champion. Here is what O’Malley said on X:

Now, Ilia Topuria faces Alexander Volkanovski in UFC 298. If he manages to win against him and gets a hold of the title, we may see Sean O’Malley taking on Topuria in the future. But, O’Malley has his challenges in his weight class as he is facing Marlon Vera for his first title defense in March 2024.

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