Surprise? Ilia Topuria praises nice guy Sean O’Malley after previous back-and-forth: ‘He’s doing a great, amazing job’

It’s always nice to see a little positivity in the fight world, especially after two would-be competitors hurled some jabs each other’s way.

As soon as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley, began his reign over the division, he tossed out the idea of colliding with Ilia Topuria at Featherweight. This was before Topuria had become his division’s champion one month before O’Malley earned his first successful title defense earlier this year (March 9, 2024). However, “Sugar” always had the hope of speaking an eventual champion vs. champion super fight into existence.

Topuria, 27, was less interested than O’Malley from the idea’s inception. The pair had some verbal exchanges on Twitter and O’Malley recently noted how he’d be upset to be the co-main event on a Topuria card. Ultimately, “El Matador” has changed his tune about his fellow champion after they met as guests at UFC 300 last month (April 13, 2024).

“He’s doing a great, amazing job of becoming bigger, and bigger in the sport,” Topuria told Sportskeeda. “He’s a big star in the United States. Even as a fighter, I like his fight style, too. I like his movement, everything he does — he’s a showman, right? I like him. He’s doing a great job.

“We just spoke once, at UFC 300,” he concluded. “We had a short conversation. We spoke [for] about one minute, but he was nice to me. He was nice.”

Neither champion has their next title defenses booked, but each is expected to be lined up against Max Holloway for Topuria and Merab Dvalishvili for O’Malley. The champions have some big ideas in mind for their futures afterward. Whether or not that includes a bout against each other remains to be seen.