Ilia Topuria tapped another item from his bucket list on UFC 317, but he may have trouble securing one of his remaining goals.
Topuria continued his rapid indictment to greatness on MMA's greatest stage last Saturday, when he added a second championship to his collection.
After a short but violent stint on the featherweight throne, Topuria Charles Oliveira played on UFC 317 to catch the lightweight title, which was abandoned by Islam Makhachev.
With brutal Ko after Brutal Ko, 'El Matador' reaches its elevated goals in the UFC with relative ease. But people turn out to be a bit harder to blossom.
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Dana White says that Ilia Topuria's UFC Spain Dream 'is not even an option'
Since the breaking of a rising star in the UFC, Topuria has outlined his intention to bring the Octagon to Spain.
In particular, Topuria wants to fight for UFC in Madrid in the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. The retractable roof of the location has made it a candidate to be the first stadium show of the UFC since UFC 243 in Australia six years ago.
But the newly crowned lightweight Kingpin's hope to defend a title on home floor took another blow during the Dana White press conference after UFC 317.
“Spain is not even an option at the moment,” said White.
Although that will dent the immediate hope of Topuria to compete in Spain, the UFC -CEOo has let the door open by claiming that a final first trip to the European nation is inevitable.
“It's the goal,” said White. “We have been trying to get to Spain here for a while. But hopefully that is what I want to do and we will see if we can get it done … We will see what is available and let's see what we can think of.
“We definitely go to Spain, it's just a matter of when.”
The obstacle that blocks the debut of the UFC in Spain
Earlier this year, Topuria revealed a problem that prevented UFC Spain, which suggests that the need to host a potential pay-per-view there in the US would be unfeasible.
More recently, the obstacle that the Bernabeu prevents events outside of football is detailed by journalist Rodrigo del Campo González.
“At the time, Bernabeu can organize nothing but football, they have really bad permit problems with the city and the neighborhood,” wrote the journalist on X.
“They partially renovated to do concerts, they were able to host some, but paid more than 2.5 million euros in fines for noise violations.”
He repeated the earlier comments from Topuria in a follow -up post and noted that there is no problem with the NFL that organizes a competition at the location later this year in the afternoon.