Bantamweight champ Sean O’Malley is sure that he only wants to fight a victorious Ilia Topuria in the future.
This weekend, Topuria will try to dethrone featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298. And even though it will be the biggest risk on the undisputed fighter’s record, Topuria is confident that he will make a win again. In line with this, different fighters are already hoping to be the next opponent of “El Matador.” That includes O’Malley, who wants a champ vs. champ fight between him and the Spanish fighter.
Hearing about the callout, Topuria expressed a lack of interest in facing O’Malley. In his recent interviews, the 27-year-old said he instead wanted to face Conor McGregor. O’Malley, however, questioned the young fighter’s record, noting that Topuria should even be grateful for challenging him. And despite the dismissal and admitting that Volkanovski is a tough fight, O’Malley continues to hope that Topuria would win so he would be able to get his champ vs. champ bout plan.
“It’s hard to go against Volk, isn’t it?” O’Malley said on his TimboSugarShow. “I’m just going with Ilia because I’m going to keep manifesting that (Las Vegas) Sphere September fight.”
So, what happens if Topuria loses to Volkanovski this weekend? For O’Malley, the currently undisputed fighter would then be “irrelevant” in his eyes.
“Ilia – is he going to get the f*cking job done? Ilia vs. Volk,” O’Malley said. “He better hope he f*cking does because he’s talking a lot of games. He’s talking a lot of sh*t. He’s got a documentary going coming out – he’s got a f*cking movie coming out. He’s calling out Conor McGregor. If he goes and loses to Volk, he’s irrelevant. I’m not going to be calling him out.”
