Ilia Topuria is coming back. The former UFC lightweight champion announced on Instagram that he is preparing to return to competition, nearly five months after Justin Gaethje took his title and his unbeaten record in a fight that left him temporarily unable to see out of either eye.
The message arrived with a set of photographs from the Didgori Memorial in Georgia, the country of his parents, where Topuria went to reflect on his roots. “I returned to where it all began,” he wrote, according to talkSPORT. Then he added: “Not to reminisce, but to remember. ‘The Matador’ is coming back.”
No opponent or date has been confirmed.
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The loss to Gaethje came in June at the UFC’s historic White House event, and it ended badly and abruptly for Topuria, who was forced to retire on his stool because of significant facial injuries. He later revealed the vision problems, which explained a lot about why a fighter with his record of finishing people would stay seated. He hasn’t competed since, and his next appearance will be his first since surrendering the belt.
Topuria, now 29, built his reputation on the kind of climb that doesn’t happen often. Born in Germany to Georgian parents and raised later in Spain, he won the UFC featherweight championship, then moved up to lightweight and knocked out Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 in June 2025 to become a two-division champion. Gaethje was the first man to beat him as a professional.
Who’s next
The obvious name, at least for anyone who enjoys a grudge, is Paddy Pimblett. The two have been feuding since an altercation at a London hotel in 2022, and they faced off again in the cage after Topuria finished Oliveira. Pimblett is coming off a win over Benoit Saint Denis, which keeps him in the mix.
Arman Tsarukyan has a cleaner case on paper. He knocked out Mauricio Ruffy at UFC 331 in September, another strong result on a resume that already had him knocking on the title door.
Then there’s Gaethje, who holds the belt and has already ruled out an immediate rematch with Topuria. Whatever the champion decides to do next will shape how the rest of the division lines up, and it closes off the most natural path for Topuria to get straight back to a title fight.
Quick take
I like that he went to Georgia before saying anything. Fighters who lose the way Topuria lost, slumped on a stool with his eyesight gone, sometimes come back too fast and too loud, and a quiet visit to a memorial reads like someone taking stock instead of selling a fight. As for the matchmaking, Tsarukyan is the fight that makes sense for a former champion trying to earn his way back to Gaethje, and Pimblett is the fight that sells. My guess is the UFC leans toward the money, because a five-year-old hotel scuffle is easier to market than a contender who has been waiting his turn. Topuria’s eyes are the first thing anyone should be watching when a date finally gets announced, more than any opponent’s name.
