Jack Della Maddalena’s coach thinks Ilia Topuria moving up to 170 pounds would be a bad idea.
UFC lightweight champion Topuria’s desire to make a welterweight move was mainly to secure a fight with Islam Makhachev, after Makhachev relinquished his belt to go up a weight class.
But Makhachev (27-1 MMA, 16-1 UFC) will have to get past welterweight champion Della Maddalena (18-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) first, when the pair square off in the UFC 322 headliner on Nov. 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Della Maddalena’s head coach Ben Vickers thinks former featherweight champion and current 155-pound champ Topuria (17-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) would be too small for welterweight.
“He’s my height, and I’m a midget,” Vickers told Submission Radio. “He needs to stay where he is. It will be a very bad decision for him to come up and fight Jack. They’re the same fighter, essentially – he’s just a midget and Jack’s a bit bigger. They do a lot of the same things very well, and I love Ilia. He’s one of my favorite fighters to watch because I think he fights like Jack.
“They’re very similar, but I don’t think he has any business jumping up two weight classes and fighting Jack. But that’s up to him. If he wants to do that, fair play to him. I respect it, and I think Ilia is going to be at a point like Islam soon where he can do whatever he wants because he’s unstoppable.”
Topuria, who fought all the way down to bantamweight early in his career, captured the lightweight title by knocking out Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 in June. He knocked out Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway in featherweight title fights before vacating his belt for a move up to 155 pounds. Prior to facing Oliveira, “El Matador” said he believes he has a shot to become a three-weight champion, but Vickers doesn’t think so.
