World featherweight champion Ilia Topuria is riding high on confidence since winning his bout against Alexander Volkanovski and capturing the UFC gold in the Featherweight division. Topuria knocked out Alexander in the second round via a powerful boxing combination to claim victory. The Georgian seems to be in high spirits as he claims that he will be the highest-paid athlete in the world in the year 2025.
Ilia Topuria is one of the highest-ranked pound-for-pound stars in the UFC. His next fight is yet to be announced for his first title defense in the UFC.
Ilia Topuria makes a humongous statement
The past few months have been great for Topuria in the UFC. Apart from becoming the champion, he has also amassed a ton of followers worldwide in the company. Ilia has an impressive four million followers on Instagram. In an interview, he recently made a heavy claim about getting paid in the world of MMA. He said,
I have no doubt in 2025, I will be the highest paid athlete in the world.
Ilia claimed that he would be the highest-paid sports star in the world. Many might not agree with the champion, as fighter pay has always been an issue in the UFC. Conor McGregor was the last and only MMA fighter to top the list of highest-paid athletes. Conor’s loss was mainly due to selling his whiskey company, Proper Twelve. Topuria has yet to achieve the same fame as McGregor in the UFC.
It will be difficult for Topuria to match the likes of some of the major soccer and NBA superstars. Folks like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the highest-paid athletes, making over a hundred million dollars in the calendar year. Dana White is unlikely to pay Topuria such a massive amount of money. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the future with Ilia Topuria so that he enters the Forbes list of highest-paid athletes.
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Ilia Topuria is one of the company’s biggest stars, but he will want to pursue an entrepreneurial path to financial success.
