Ilia Topuria explains why he'll finish Charles Oliveira in the first round

Undefeated former featherweight champion Ilia Topuria returns to the lightweight division on June 28 in the UFC 317 main event against former 155-pound champion Charles Oliveira for the vacant lightweight title.

Topuria relinquished the 145-pound championship to move up a weight class in an effort to join the two-division UFC champion club. He'll enter the fight coming off back-to-back knockout wins over two of the greatest featherweights to ever grace the octagon: Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway.

Former lightweight champion Islam Makhachev had the same aspirations of becoming a two-division UFC champion as Topuria. The 155-pound championship is vacant because Makhachev moved up to the welterweight division and is expected to faced champion Jack Della Maddalena later this year.

Oliveira is coming off a unanimous decision win over Michael Chandler in his last fight at UFC 309 last November. The Brazilian holds the record for the most submission wins in UFC history, but Topuria believes he has the edge over "Do Bronx" if the fight hits the ground. 

"To be honest, I feel I have the advantage in the grappling game also. I feel and I know that I'm better than him even in the ground game," Topuria said during a UFC 317 media scrum on Friday. 

"We'll see how the fight goes, but if I have to submit him, I have all the abilities to do that also. We'll see."

Ilia Topuria Predicts a First-Round Finish Over Charles Oliveira at UFC 317

Ilia Topuria expects to finish former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira in the first round when they meet in the octagon in the UFC 317 main event. 

"I can knock him out. I can submit him. Whatever. The only thing I know for sure is I'm going to knock him out in the first round, or summit him in the first round because he walks forward," Topuria said. "I'm not going to need to close the distance with him. Since the first moment, we're going to find each other in the center of the octagon. It's going to be first-round finish."