Akin to Conor McGregor, UFC 145-pound champion Ilia Topuria is expanding his role in MMA. In addition to his duties as a fighter, Topuria is now a part owner of Way of Warrior FC – one of Spain’s top professional MMA promotions. WOW and Topuria announced the news Tuesday, stating the Spaniard is now a major stakeholder.
This comes on the heels of Conor McGregor and his McGregor Sports & Entertainment announcing he is a part-owner of the bare-knuckle fighting promotion. This happened during the BKFC “KnuckleMania” 4 headliner broadcast, in the presence of President David Feldman. Following the same blueprint and touting to have even bigger success someday, Ilia Topuria does the same. While McGregor’s equity ownership is not solely out of Ireland just yet, WOW operates out of Madrid.
Way of Warrior FC, with over 30 events, is one of Spain’s, if not Spain’s, premier MMA events promotion. Subsequently, it streams on Movistar+ and UFC Fight Pass. The first event with Topuria aboard will take place September 14th at the Palacio de Vistalegre Arena in Madrid. Topuria will be in attendance at the event, which is just over a month away from his first UFC title defense. ‘El Matador’ faces former champion Max Holloway in the main event of UFC 308 pay-per-view (PPV) on October 26 in Abu Dhabi.
‘Notorious’ recently co-hosted the BKFC Spain conference in Marbella, streaming on Triller TV. The Alicante-Georgian featherweight took some time out to fire shots at Conor McGregor for gracing his land. While he follows the same blueprint, Topuria, 27 is widely more popular in Spain. He even took the honorary kick-off at the Real Madrid vs. Sevilla game after the UFC 298 PPV headliner in February. His stake in an MMA promotion will only propel that global status even higher now.
Ilia Topuria confirms Max Holloway’s BMF title not at stake for UFC 308
Ilia Topuria has confirmed Holloway’s 155-pound BMF title won’t be up for grabs in the UFC 308 PPV headliner next. Before their October. 26 billing at Etihad Arena on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi came to be, Topuria wanted the silver to be at stake. This would be him logging his maiden defense of the title. Going up against the hard-chin heavy hitter Holloway, he wanted more than his title to be at risk.
‘Blessed’ won the BMF belt with a shock fifth-round finish of Justin Gaethje at the April UFC 300 pay-per-view (PPV) event. Since then, he has been engaging in much bait-and-switch to hook in Holloway and his not-so-gimmicky and hard-won title. But then negotiations happened. Topuria consequently said the conclusion was that his belt would be the only one wrapped around the winner.
No, the BMF title is not going to be on the line, …To be honest, I don’t care. They took that decision and at the end of the day, it’s like, when I’m going to beat him he can’t say he’s a BMF or however they want to call him…I’m just concentrating on my title defense and that’s it.
Ilia Topuria to Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie
Topuria refused to speculate to MMAJunkie’s Mike Bohn as to why the BMF belt was put on the backburner of the bout. The Team Climent Club champion said it was a promotional decision, and once made, he focused on the fight itself.
His confidence since the second-round knockout of Alexander Volkanovski in February has been gargantuan. Immediately post-fight, he said he’d be the one to knock out Holloway in UFC competition. BMF belt or not, he is doubling down on those notions of a “BMF” statement performance.
