Ilia Topuria has pushed for his opportunity to move up to lightweight to challenge reigning champion Islam Makhachev and now he can add Joe Rogan to his list of supporters for that fight to happen next.
During his Fight Companion podcast for UFC 312, the veteran color commentator and comedian looked ahead at the calendar in 2025 and immediately suggested Topuria vs. Makhachev as a fight he wants to see most. While Rogan understands the argument that Topuria hasn’t even cleared out his own division yet as featherweight champion, it’s impossible not to see the appeal in allowing him to go up to 155 pounds for a fight against Makhachev.
“As crazy as it sounds, I hope Ilia goes up to [155 pounds]. I really do,” Rogan said. “[Alexander] Volkanovski-Diego Lopes [at] 145, Ilia goes up to 55. I don’t care if he only defended the title one time or didn’t, who cares. Let’s go. Let’s f*cking go.
“It’d be nice [to see him fight some of the other contenders at featherweight] but also who cares? Let’s go. Let’s f*cking go.”
While it’s true that Topuria has only defended his belt one time, his two most recent wins came against arguably two of the best featherweights in the history of the sport.
After finishing Alexander Volkanovski to win the belt, Topuria followed that up with a stunning knockout over Max Holloway, who had never been finished by strikes up to that point in his career.
All the talk lately has been about Topuria running it back with Volkanovski in a rematch but Rogan prefers that the former champion would get another win to re-establish himself before gunning for a rematch.
“If you want to make the big fight for July, is it the Volkanovski rematch? I don’t know,” Rogan said. “Volkanovski, people probably want to see him win one.
“He gets beaten by Islam in the first fight, he gets KO’d by Islam in the second fight … and then he gets KO’d by Ilia. So two KO losses in a row, one decision, even though he’s a legend, you kind of want to see him beat a contender maybe.”
If the UFC moves forward with Topuria vs. Volkanovski 2 instead, Rogan isn’t totally opposed to that matchup but it’s impossible to ignore how the first fight ended.
That said, Rogan wants Volkanovski to come into the fight at his absolute best, which isn’t how he felt when the Australian returned rather quickly from his knockout loss to Makhachev and then suffered the same fight against Topuria.
“I wouldn’t hate a rematch,” Rogain said about Topuria vs. Volkanovski 2. “It’s one of those ones where I hope Alex is 100 percent and I want to see it but he shouldn’t have fought him that quickly after getting KO’d by Islam. Three months, four months later, he took a shot.”
