Ilia Topuria’s lightweight saga finally has some clarity.
On Tuesday, UFC CEO Dana White announced a handful of big summer UFC fights, starting with 2025’s long-awaited International Fight Week main event. Set for June 29, White revealed that UFC 317 will feature a 155-pound title tilt for the vacant strap, pitting former featherweight champion Topuria against former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira. As part of that announcement, now-former champion Islam Makhachev has vacated his belt and will move up a division to challenge for the welterweight title against new champion Jack Della Maddalena on a yet-to-be-determined date in the second half of 2025.
Oliveira (35-10, 1 NC) officially welcomes Topuria (16-0) to the lightweight division as a mainstay after Topuria previously made his UFC lightweight debut in London three years ago. Like Makhachev, the former featherweight champion Topuria vacated his title in February to change divisions. On the other side, Oliveira looks to become a two-time 155-pound champion after first winning gold in 2021.
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Makhachev, 33, is currently Uncrowned’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
Topuria, 28, moves up to 155 pounds in the midst of one of the greatest two-fight runs in UFC history, having knocked featherweight legends Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway in back-to-back bouts to capture Uncrowned’s 2024 Fighter of the Year award. With a perfect 8-0 Octagon record since joining the UFC in 2020, “El Matador” is Uncrowned’s No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
Oliveira, 35, is 2-2 over his past four UFC appearances, rotating losses to Makhachev and Arman Tsarukyan between wins over Beneil Dariush and, most recently, Michael Chandler this past November.
In UFC 317’s co-main event, the men’s flyweight title will also be on the line as champion Alexandre Pantoja (29-5) defends against Kai Kara-France (25-11, 1 NC). The pairing is a rematch from a 2016 exhibition bout when both were on “The Ultimate Fighter 24,” which Pantoja won with a two-round unanimous decision.
Those two title bouts weren’t the only matchups announced by White on Tuesday.
At UFC 319 on Aug. 16 in Chicago, middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis (23-2) makes his third title defense against the undefeated super-contender Khamzat Chimaev (14-0).
The matchup is the long-awaited first UFC title shot for Chimaev, who ran roughshod through the welterweight division before making his move to 185 pounds, where he’s 2-0 with a decision win over Kamaru Usman followed by a brutal first-round stoppage of former champ Robert Whittaker, the latter of which left Whittaker with a gruesome jaw injury.
In addition, White announced three other bouts: middleweights Paulo Costa vs. Roman Kopylov and lightweights Beneil Dariush vs. Renato Moicano for UFC 317, as well as middleweights Shara Magomedov vs. Marc-Andre Barriault on July 26 for UFC Abu Dhabi.