Chael Sonnen recently questioned the official story surrounding Ilia Topuria’s loss of the UFC featherweight title, alleging he was stripped rather than vacating it. In a YouTube video, Sonnen shared his perspective with subscribers, offering a detailed argument against the UFC’s narrative.
Sonnen explained his reasoning clearly, via MMAmania.
“If you’re gonna make [Topuria] the number one contender, you would do that in the same press release that you stripped him in,” he told his YouTube subscribers. “Which by the way, is another part of this story that’s gotten very weird. I realize the official tale is to be told that Ilia vacated the title. I am aware that’s how we need to tell this as fight fans, but if you weren’t told that as fight fans, you just went and looked at what happened, you would have no choice but to realize he was stripped.”
He continued:
“There was nothing about the way that played out, including the fact that he was no longer champion, he was no longer champion on Saturday night when the bell rang. It might seem like a small detail, but if you look at what happened, he was stripped. They’ve all decided to go along to get along and use the word vacated, and it does matter. It matters to the fighters for whatever silly reason, I’m just sharing it does matter. I’m not willing to play along. He didn’t vacate the belt, Ilia got stripped.”
Topuria’s Title Situation
Topuria, now 28 with a 16-0 record, defended his featherweight title against Max Holloway at UFC 314, winning by knockout. Afterward, the UFC announced he vacated the title to pursue a lightweight title shot against Islam Makhachev.
This led to Alexander Volkanovski defeating Diego Lopes by unanimous decision to claim the vacant featherweight title at the same event.
The UFC and Topuria’s team maintain he chose to vacate, aligning with his goal to compete at 155 pounds.
Sonnen, a retired fighter with a 31-17-1 record, insists this is inaccurate, claiming Topuria was no longer champion when his fight began, though no official evidence supports this.
