Somewhere inside the White House complex in the small hours of the morning on June 15th, Ilia Topuria sat with a face that no longer looked like his own. Both eyes swollen, his corner’s decision already made, the belt he had carried from featherweight to lightweight stripped from him by a 37-year-old American veteran the entire sport had written off as a sacrificial lamb on the biggest stage in UFC history.
Somewhere on his phone, Arman Tsarukyan had already posted “Ilia no mas,” timestamped to the second the towel went down. That image tells you everything about what the first professional loss of Topuria’s career actually means. An invitation. Every fighter in the lightweight division spent Sunday night recalculating.
Gaethje Upsets the Odds
The bookies hardly gave challenger Justin Gaethje a hope on fight night. Popular Ozoon online betting site listed the American warhorse as long as +400 to spring the upset, with the champion Topuria a mighty -500 favorite. And after a first round in which El Matador dominated, those odds seemed entirely accurate.
But something strange happened as Topuria made his way back to the corner for the end of round 1. One of his eyes had already taken some severe damage and was swollen shut. Gaethje would take full advantage, winning the second and then the third, dropping Topuria in the process. By the end of that round, both of El Matador’s eyes were now covered in cuts and bruises, and despite him enjoying his best round in the fourth, his corner pulled him out of the fight before the fifth got underway, handing the Highlight a stunning TKO win.
Now Topuria has lost the version of himself he had been selling to the world since he knocked out Alexander Volkanovski — the untouchable, the unbeaten, the pound-for-pound best who moved up a weight class and made it look easy. That identity is gone now. That version quit on the stool. What comes is his reckoning. But who could be next in line for the now-former lightweight champion? Here are the three most likely options.
Justin Gaethje Rematch
Consider what it actually took for Gaethje to do what he did Sunday night. A man who had held the interim lightweight title twice, who won the BMF championship by knocking out Dustin Poirier in the second round at UFC 291, who had his heart broken by Max Holloway with one second left in round five at UFC 300 — a moment so brutal it almost felt like the sport was telling him enough was enough.
Reminder that Justin Gaethje did that. #UFCFreedom250 pic.twitter.com/dC9wQUsruM
— Ozoon (@Ozoon_CA) June 15, 2026
Then, he bounced back. First came a unanimous decision over Rafael Fiziev at UFC 313. Then, the next big thing, Paddy Pimblett, was dominated across five rounds at UFC 324 to win the interim strap again. Then walked onto the South Lawn of the White House as a five-to-one underdog and stopped the pound-for-pound best fighter in the sport before the fifth round. At 37. The entire sport told him it was impossible. He didn’t seem to get the message.
The personal dimension was already raw before a single punch was thrown. Topuria made that promotional video — the white rose on Gaethje’s casket — and pressed whatever nerve he thought he was pressing. Gaethje pressed back harder, alluding to Topuria’s recent divorce; both men’s families pulled into a feud that had long stopped being promotional and started being something uglier. Topuria’s Instagram post after the stoppage was unambiguous: “This story between us is far from over.” The rematch is surely the only fight that the UFC matchmakers can make next.
Paddy Pimblett
The hotel corridor at UFC London in 2022 doesn’t happen without a careless Paddy Pimblett tweet from 2021 that referenced Georgians being “terrorized.” The Englishman says he had no idea that Georgia was at war in 2008. Maybe that’s true. But it didn’t matter to Topuria, who took it as exactly what it looked like and has never forgiven him for it. They clashed in person that following year in London — not in a cage, not with gloves on, just two fighters in a hotel corridor with genuine hatred between them. That’s where this rivalry actually started, and four years later, the two still haven’t met inside the Octagon.
Before the post-fight show at UFC Freedom 250 had even ended, Pimblett was on YouTube. His face intact — pointedly, deliberately intact — after five hard rounds against Gaethje at UFC 324, calling Topuria a “little b*tch” for the corner stoppage and noting, with the particular cruelty of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing, that his own face had looked worse after that fight. He then called for the Gaethje rematch himself, rather than calling out a stricken Topuria at his lowest.
But the commercial argument for this fight is real, and before Gaethje’s stunning win on the White House lawn, it carried more clamor than a clash between Topuria and the American veteran that ultimately defeated him. Should Pimblett win his UFC 329 bout with Benoît Saint-Denis on July 11 and Gaethje not be available for an immediate title defense, Pimblett vs Topuria would likely be the next preferred option.
Arman Tsarukyan
Arman Tsarukyan — ranked second in the UFC lightweight division, a man who knocked out Beneil Dariush in the first round, split-decisioned Charles Oliveira at UFC 300 in a fight billed as a title eliminator, submitted Dan Hooker with an arm-triangle in Doha — bet big money on Justin Gaethje to beat the man he has been trying to fight for two years. Then posted the timestamp of the stoppage like a receipt.
The grievance runs deeper than a bet. He was set to challenge Islam Makhachev at UFC 311 in January 2025 but pulled out with a back injury, and Dana White stripped him of the number one contender slot. He hasn’t come close to a genuine title opportunity since. He did serve as backup at UFC Freedom 250 should either fighter pull out late with an injury, but he ultimately sat in the building, watched from the wings, and went home empty-handed again.
Topuria has long been mocking the Armenian’s lifestyle, calling him a “man-child,” claiming he was “playing the game of being rich.” Tsarukyan’s response was to accuse Topuria of deliberately avoiding him, specifically when El Matador praised every other contender in the division by name but somehow never quite got around to the guy sitting at number two. If it’s a genuine Caucasus blood feud that the UFC wants, one doesn’t get much bigger than Topuria vs Tsarukyan.
The post What’s Next for Ilia Topuria Following Shock Defeat to Justin Gaethje at UFC Freedom 250? first appeared on My MMA News.
