Ilia Topuria lays out plan to fight Conor McGregor after beating Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298

Ilia Topuria is expecting to have a massive 2024.

Topuria is set to headline UFC 298 on Feb. 17 in Anaheim, California against Alexander Volkanovski for the featherweight title. With still over a month to go to the fight, Topuria is a small +130 underdog, which implies a 43.5% chance of winning the fight.

However, in the lead-up to the scrap, Ilia Topuria has been oozing with confidence that he will be the first person to defeat Alexander Volkanovski at featherweight. If he does just that, Toupria, in a reply to Sean O’Malley on X, says he will be fighting Conor McGregor next.

I offered to fight you but the UFC told me that you are only good for fighting in teenagers' places, because that’s your only fan base .Our fight will never happen. After fighting Volk I will fight Conor. and you will come as a fan boy. After seeing your ppv numbers the only… https://t.co/bb0F5uAIq1

— Ilia Topuria (@Topuriailia) January 4, 2024

“I offered to fight you but the UFC told me that you are only good for fighting in teenagers’ places, because that’s your only fan base .Our fight will never happen. After fighting Volk I will fight Conor. and you will come as a fan boy. After seeing your ppv numbers the only thing I can offer you is that you fight in the preliminaries of my card,” Topuria wrote.

If Ilia Topuria does beat Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298, it’s likely the Aussie would get an immediate rematch, meaning he would need to beat the champ twice before he could get a Conor McGregor. However, a fight between Topuria and McGregor also seems unlikely given that the Irishman has no chance of fighting at 145lbs again his career and is hinting at his return fight being at 185lbs. But, perhaps a bout between Topuria and McGregor does come to fruition down the line in what would be a massive fight in Europe.

In Topuria’s post to O’Malley, he shut down a fight with ‘Suga’ which on paper is more likely to happen than McGregor. Topuria and O’Malley are only one weight class apart, and should Topuria get the win it could set up a massive champ-champ fight between him and ‘Suga’ but he appears set on McGregor and not O’Malley.

Ilia Topuria (14-0) is coming off a one-sided decision win over Josh Emmett back in June in his first UFC main event. Before that, Topuria scored a submission win over Bryce Mitchell after returning to featherweight. In his lone lightweight fight in the UFC, he scored a KO win over Jai Herbert.

Topuria is 6-0 in the UFC as he has also beaten Ryan Hall by KO, Damon Jackson by KO, and Youssef Zalal by decision. He’s currently ranked fifth at featherweight ahead of his title shot at UFC 298.