Ilia Topuria announces return to training as he continues to gear up for anticipated UFC return

The former lightweight champion has officially returned to training as he continues to work towards a return to the sport.

This past June, Ilia Topuria suffered one of the most shocking losses in UFC history when Justin Gaethje stopped him in round four of their UFC Freedom 250 main event clash.

Topuria accused Gaethje of cheating, claiming that he used something in or on his gloves, resulting in ‘El Matador’ suffering two broken orbitals, as well as a broken nose.

And after his manager claimed that Topuria will return to the UFC in February, the 29-year-old has officially returned to training to prepare for his highly anticipated return to action.

Arman Tsarukyan seems undeniable, but Ilia Topuria has recently ruffled feathers👀

Unfortunately for the former featherweight and lightweight champion, it seems as though he has missed out on an immediate rematch with ‘The Highlight’. Gaethje has revealed that he’ll fight Tsarukyan next if he does decide to stay in the sport, once again delaying retirement.

Despite the American champion’s plan to defend his title against the Armenian next, that hasn’t stopped Topuria from returning to training to prepare for his impending return to the cage. “Back to the office,” Topuria captioned a series of images on his Instagram, showing him back on the mats training his boxing.

When the 29-year-old does return to action, at this point, the most likely opponent for him is soaring British star, Paddy Pimblett, who has been calling for a fight against the Spaniard for some time now.

“Training to quit again,” one fan commented on the news of Topuria returning to the mats. “We will get our belt back,” another fan defended the former champion.

“Justin owns him forever. He has to get past Paddy first then Emperor Justin maybe can give him a rematch,” a third fan suggested.

“He has to work on cardio,” another fan commented. “He’s too small for lightweight, he should go back down to 145,” said another fan.

That coincides with recent comments made by Justin Gaethje who suggested Topuria moves back down to 145lbs, where he won the title by knocking out Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298, only making one title defense before moving up to lightweight.

“Topuria hype gimmick just to get absolutely size mogged and smothered by Paddy The Baddy,” another fan predicted.

Pimblett is widely regarded to be one of the biggest lightweight fighters, partly due to the fact that he balloons in size when he is out of camp. Pimblett has previously been labeled a ‘weight bully’ after it was revealed that when he fought Benoit Saint-Denis at UFC 329, he weighed 190lbs.