UFC brass have informed fighters that they will no longer allow two-weight simultaneous champions to be crowned, according to Diego Lopes.
The bombshell news comes in light of Ilia Topuria vacating his featherweight world title to move up to lightweight.
UFC president Dana White announced the news on social media on Thursday, saying: “Topuria felt like he’s done all that he can in that division and he feels like he cemented his legacy and his body cannot make the weight anymore.
“So Topuria will be moving up to 155lbs and will be vacating the featherweight title.
“So the way that this works is as soon as the first punch was thrown in this fight, the title will be vacant and we’ll announce what Topuria’s next fight will be when it gets done.”
Lopes is now due to face Alexander Volkanovski in the main event of UFC 314 on April 12 for the vacant featherweight strap while Topuria is expected to square off against lightweight king Islam Makhachev.
Providing he wins, he will become a two-weight world champion but the Georgian will not be able to follow in the footsteps of Conor McGregor and Daniel Cormier in holding two UFC belts at the same time.
It seems Topuria’s decision to vacate his 145lbs title was motivated more by his body outgrowing the weight class.
But according to Lopes, Topuria wasn’t left with much of a choice after the UFC sent a ‘very clear’ message to its fighters on champion vs champion matchups.
“They were very clear with us,” Lopes told Papa Legaspi.
“They did not say they’re not giving a chance to people that are jumping from division to division.
“No, if you want to go up a division, you have to leave your title vacant.
“That is what has been told to all the champions who are thinking of going up a division.”
The first two-weight simultaneous champion in UFC history was McGregor.
‘Notorious’ achieved the impressive feat by snatching the lightweight belt from Eddie Alvarez in 2016 via a second-round TKO while also being in possession of the featherweight strap.
Cormier was the next fighter to become a double champ when he flattened Stipe Miocic two years later to unify the light heavyweight and heavyweight titles.
Amanda Nunes then became the first woman to pull off the legendary accomplishment in the same year when the bantamweight queen added the featherweight belt to her collection by blasting out Cris Cyborg in a round.
In 2019, Henry Cejudo became seemingly the last simultaneous UFC champion by defeating Marlon Moraes for the bantamweight belt, one year after overcoming long-reigning flyweight king Demetrious Johnson.