What Does Ilia Topuria Vacating the UFC Featherweight Title Mean for Future Double-Champions?
Former UFC Featherweight Champion Ilia Topuria vacated his title as he is deciding to move up to lightweight. Ilia was the 145-pound title holder for nearly a year when he vacated it after dominant wins over Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway. This left many fans in confusion, as many expected him to keep the title while challenging Islam Makhahcev. However, there has been on update on why Topuria had to vacate his title, and how it may affect future double-champions in the future.
The UFC is becoming more strict on simultaneous double-champions, and will only grant that status to fighters who believe they can defend both titles. This makes sense as in previous instances, only one out of the four double-champions moved back down to their original weight classes and defended both titles. Amanda Nunes was the only one to do so, but Henry Cejudo, Daniel Cormier, and Conor McGregor didn’t look back and vacated their lower-weight championships. These are the only champ-champs in UFC history, and historically it has not benefited the UFC since it resulted in divisions being held up by inactive champs.
This has potentially ruined the opportunity of Islam Makhachev moving up to middleweight and becoming double-champ. It’s very unlikely that the current UFC Lightweight Champion can continuously defend titles at 155 and 185 pounds. This means that the Dricus du Plessis fight is likely not on the table. He can, however, still move up to welterweight and compete for that world title, as it would be much more doable for him.
There will be specific instances where the UFC will allow double-champions, as stated by Dana White. White explained that fighters who can consistently defend their titles can hold both championships at the same time. However, the UFC is cutting down on champions who move up to win a second world title and then immediately vacate their first one. This should not have a huge impact on fighters who believe they can be champions in multiple divisions at the same time, though it does mean that champ-champs will become much less common in the UFC.
