Dan Hooker isn’t buying what Ilia Topuria is selling.
This past October, Topuria successfully defended his featherweight title, knocking out Max Holloway in the main event of UFC 308. After his win, former champion Alexander Volkanovski entered the cage, setting up their rematch sometime in 2025. Except now, that may not happen.
Earlier this month, Topuria teased a move to lightweight, suggesting that he may vacate his featherweight title. “El Matador” later walked that back but still appears to be more focused on taking a fight at 155 pounds instead of running things back with Volkanovski. But for Volkanovski’s City Kickboxing teammate Dan Hooker, this is all just an act.
“Classic shit,” Hooker told Submission Radio. “It’s pretty evident that he’s just working off McGregor’s playbook, and line one of McGregor’s playbook is keep your name in the headlines. That’s all that I see from it is Topuria keeping his name in the headlines. The guy doesn’t fight all that often. I think he fights Volk sometime next year. March or April.”
This is not the first time Topuria has shown disinterest in doing something he ultimately did. Before winning the featherweight title over Volkanovski, Topuria said he would not fight Max Holloway, but of course, he eventually did. And as Hooker points out, Topuria did already agree to run things back with Volkanovski, meaning this is the fight that’s going to happen.
“Bro, then don’t get in the f*cking cage with him and agree to fight him then, dickhead! You let him get in the cage, you had a face-off with him, and you said you’d fight him. That’s, man to man, that’s that. You’ve agreed. You already agreed to a fight. How are you going to back out of it now? ...
“You should have just said no at the time. You can’t agree. That’s like the old ‘he’s taken his glove off, and he’s slapped you in his face now.’ You’ve been challenged, and you agreed, you accepted. You can’t agree to a fight, man to man, face to face, and then later be like, ‘Nah, actually, I changed me mind.’ It’s Volk versus Ilia. That’s the next fight.”
