Charles Oliveira responds to Ilia Topuria's call out, a future lightweight brawl could be in the making

While we all know that Ilia Topuria is quite brash when it comes to his comments on his opponents, this new callout towards one of the lightweight greats Charles Oliveira might have taken the crown for one of the most disrespectful.

This beef between the two legends of the sport, started shortly after Ilia Topuria had defended his Featherweight UFC title against Max Holloway, who he had knocked out in spectacular fashion, a startling first for Max Holloway as he has never been knocked out in an MMA fight.

Some time after the title defence, Ilia took to Spanish radio program El Partidazo de COPE on December 9, 2024 to announce that it is his intention to move up to Lightweight.

Ilia wasted no time calling out big stars in the Lightweight division such as the likes of the champion Islam Makhachev, and of course the former champ Charles Oliveira, who was coming off of a very dominant performance against the All-American Michael Chandler.

With the performance against Michael Chandler, Charles was looking to fight for the belt, but issued a response to the hard hitting featherweight Ilia.

“Whoever I get told to fight, I’m going to fight. I have nothing but respect for Ilia Topuria, but this is lightweight,” said Oliveira after the initial callout.

“It’s the most difficult division you have ever seen and I have power in my hands. I believe in my Jiu-Jitsu, but I believe that I could knock Ilia Topuria out.”
-Via Oddspedia

Around a similair time when Oliveira made this comment, Chael Sonnen went to his Good Guy / Bad Guy podcast with co-host Daniel Cormier, claiming that “[Charles Oliveira] will only fight [Ilia Topuria] if he wins the belt.”

Topuria did not take to Oliveira’s comments lightly. He fired back a response that could be one of the most disrespectful callouts in recent history of the UFC.

Some fans argue that Topuria, known for his high confidence and self belief, can often come off as very arrogant fighter, claiming that he hasn’t accomplished enough as a champion in Featherweight to call out former champion Oliveira in such a way.

Oliveira’s last response to Ilia since the previous call out has been one of respect, but warning Ilia that his foul words may not be the best way to provoke Charles into a matchup, promting him to “get into the division more calmly, more slowly. Because there are a lot of tough guys who deserve respect.” - March 25, 2025.

Now, regardless of whether Ilia fights Charles, the belief is that the two will either face each other, or one of them will face the extremely dominant champ at lightweight, Islam Makhachev.

It’s only speculation on who Islam will fight next but so far the names of Charles Oliveira, Ilia Topuria, Justin Gaethje, and Arman Tsarukyan are surely on his mind, all of them being amazing fights for the champion.