Yair Rodriguez says it’s on sight with Ilia Topuria: ‘Anywhere I f****** see him, I’m going to f*** him up’

Yair Rodriguez believes a win over Brian Ortega in the co-main event of UFC Mexico City will punch his ticket to another crack at the UFC featherweight title. But it also gives him the opportunity to face someone he truly dislikes in new champ Ilia Topuria, who captured the title this past Saturday when he knocked out Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298.

“I would love to f*** him up,” Rodriguez said at UFC Mexico City media day. “No, I don’t want to fight him, I want to f*** him up. There’s a f****** big difference on that, just to make that clear.

“Anywhere I f****** see him, I’ll f*** him up.”

Rodriguez and Ortega will battle it out for the second time after their first meeting ended in disaster after Ortega suffered a shoulder injury in the first round. The two will meet again in another five-round battle, and in Rodriguez’s eyes, the winner will get Topuria — possibly in Spain, which is totally fine by “El Pantera.”

“F*** this b****, I don’t f****** like him,” Rodriguez said of Topuria. “Yeah, [I think a title shot is next] for either of us. Whoever wins, the title is next.

“F*** yeah, [I’ll go to Spain,] I’ll fight him in his backyard if he wants.”

As far as Topuria’s championship winning performance goes, Rodriguez seems somewhat impressed that the 27-year-old Georgian native called his shot and backed up his words, but that’s where any complements for the undefeated featherweight ends.

“My reaction was, he did it,” Rodriguez said. “He said he was going to do it, and he did it, and I don’t have much to say about that.”