Ilia Topuria’s time off questioned by rivals after Khabib Nurmagomedov and Arman Tsarukyan comments

Ilia Topuria’s recent comments have received responses from his rivals.

The UFC lightweight champion has achieved a lot inside the Octagon in a short amount of time.

Unfortunately, it’s going to be some time before we see the titleholder put the belt on the line for the first time following Topuria’s career update.

Topuria has since shared more details about the personal issues that he’s made his priority so that he can deal with them before thinking about fighting.

This break in his career hasn’t stopped ‘El Matador’ from producing some critical comments about his fellow fighters.

Arman Tsarukyan fires back at Ilia Topuria in response to recent comments

Ilia Topuria mentioned Khabib Nurmagomedov when recently sharing his latest thoughts on a potential fight with Islam Makhachev.

Unsurprisingly, the lightweight champion also took a shot at Arman Tsarukyan when responding to fans questioning why this matchup isn’t happening.

‘El Matador’ feels no sympathy towards the top contender, who will likely be frozen out of the title picture for most of 2026, due to him pulling out of a title fight in January.

Topuria’s comments when speaking to EldoberdanMMA quickly attracted the attention of Tsarukyan and others who responded shortly after.

Tsarukyan, who has questioned Topuria’s break from fighting in the past, did the same again when questioning how he’s finding the time.

“You talking about taking time off from fighting to fix your family issues, but it looks like you have plenty of free time for all these interviews,” he wrote on X. “You’re a joke.”