Topuria slams O'Malley: 'Our fight will never happen'

Upcoming UFC featherweight title challenger Ilia Topuria sees no way that a matchup against bantamweight champion Sean O'Malley would take place.

The UFC could theoretically set up a superfight between Topuria and O'Malley if Topuria dethrones 145-pound champ Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298 in February and O'Malley retains his title against Marlon Vera at UFC 299 in March. But Topuria tweeted Thursday that he has no interest in facing O'Malley and wants to take on UFC star Conor McGregor instead after a potential victory over Volkanovski.

"I offered to fight you, but the UFC told me that you are only good for fighting in teenagers' places, because that's your only fan base," Topuria wrote in a social media post directed at O'Malley. "Our fight will never happen. After fighting (Volkanovski), I will fight Conor. And you will come as a fanboy.

"After seeing your (pay-per-view) numbers, the only thing I can offer you is that you fight in the preliminaries of my card."

Topuria was firing back after O'Malley tweeted Wednesday that "Ilia's my Eddie," alluding to McGregor moving up in weight as the UFC featherweight champion in 2016 and knocking out Eddie Alvarez to capture the lightweight title.

O'Malley responded to Topuria's comments Thursday:

O'Malley is seeking his first 135-pound title defense after taking out Aljamain Sterling last August, while Topuria earned a shot at Volkanovski's featherweight belt by winning six in a row in the Octagon.

If Topuria were to face McGregor, the Spain resident would need to at least move up to lightweight. McGregor announced earlier this week that he will come back from a three-year layoff to face Michael Chandler in a middleweight bout June 29.