Volks Slams Topuria For ‘Saying No To Everyone’

You can’t lose the featherweight title if you don’t defend it.

Perhaps newly-crowned division champion, Ilia Topuria, is taking a page from the Dricus Du Plessis playbook, or maybe he’s feeling uninspired by the list of available contenders. I’m sure it must be challenging to already be the greatest of all time at just 27 years old.

“Right now, he’s saying ‘no’ to everyone,” former champion Alex Volkanovski told FOX Sports. “That’s the problem. He’s saying no to Max Holloway, to Brian Ortega, to me, you name it. Not wanting to come to Australia, okay, but he’s saying ‘no’ to everyone. He’s saying ‘I don’t want to fight any of the contenders … I want to fight Conor McGregor’. That just puts a sour taste in people’s mouths. Because when you hold the belt, there is a responsibility that comes with that, a pressure. You can’t just be saying ‘nah, nah, nah’, that’s crazy — he’s not going about things the right way.”

Volkanovski was also criticized for not going about things the right way — but in the opposite direction. “The Great” competed four times within a 12-month span despite calls for the Aussie to rest his rattled brain.

As a result, Volkanovski will be skipping the UFC 305 fight card in Perth.

“Obviously I don’t want to talk bad about the bloke, because he took his shot, won and now has to play the game, which I understand,” Volkanovski continued. “But be a champion. People got used to how I acted as champion. Now you’ve got a guy, who knows when he wants to fight? Does he even want a fight soon? Probably not. But the UFC will likely make him. Maybe this is just his way of hyping things up, saying no to everyone and then — bang — he signs for a fight. I just hope he makes better decisions because I don’t think he’s a bad kid. But now he’s calling out Conor McGregor? Or Islam Makhachev? Topuria has still got more to prove.”

Starting with this dangerous fight (we hope) at some point later this year.