Dan Hooker doubts UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria will move up to lightweight.
Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) teased a potential move up to 155 pounds after achieving back-to-back knockouts of Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway. Topuria’s coach pointed to his weight cut as the primary reason for considering the change.
However, Hooker doesn’t believe Topuria will change weight classes. He compared Topuria’s approach to that of Conor McGregor.
“Classic sh*t,” Hooker told Submission Radio. “It’s pretty evident that he’s just working off of McGregor’s playbook. Line 1 in McGregor’s playbook is to keep your name in the headlines. That’s all that I kind of see from it, is Topuria keeping his name in the headlines. The guy doesn’t fight that often. I think he just fights Volk sometime next year, March or April.”
After becoming the first to knock out Holloway this past October at UFC 308, Topuria welcomed a rematch with Volkanovski. Hooker criticized Topuria for contemplating a change of plans after initially agreeing to fight his City Kickboxing teammate.
“Don’t get in the fcking cage with him and agree to fight him then, dckhead,” Hooker said. “You let him get in the cage, you had a faceoff with him, and you said you’d fight him, man to man? That’s that: You’ve already agreed to a fight, and how are you going to back out of it now?”
Hooker (24-12 MMA, 14-8 UFC) is back in the upper echelon of the UFC lightweight division after achieving three-straight wins over Claudio Puelles, Jalin Turner, and most recently Mateusz Gamrot at UFC 305.
Be sure to visit the MMA Junkie Instagram page and YouTube channel to discuss this and more content with fans of mixed martial arts.
