Ryan Hall is tired of being avoided by fighters in his division.
Hall will be back inside the Octagon for the first time since July 2019. He will take on Ilia Topuria on the preliminary portion of the UFC 264 card on Saturday night (July 10). Topuria is an undefeated prospect in the featherweight division.
During a media scrum, Hall expressed frustration over his peers refusing to take fights.
“I think at a certain point, if you put together enough sustained success, people should not be allowed to say no to you. And also, the whole, ‘Oh, too high risk (low) reward,’ I’m like, ‘Get out of my face with that nonsense.’
“The other thing is, I’m putting my money where my mouth is. Because I know how good Ilia Topuria is. I know how tough he is. But the fact of the matter is he’s only 2-0 in the UFC and just got in recently. And I can’t ask other people to do things that I’m not willing to do.”
Recently, fellow 145-pounder Giga Chikadze blasted featherweights in the top 15 rankings for not wanting to fight each other.
Ryan Hall went on to say that he took the fight with Topuria because he represents a tough challenge.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m here to face the best challenges possible. I think I represent a lot of that to a lot of people. But Ilia represents that to me, and that’s why I immediately signed up. And if I put my money where my mouth is and I come out of that with a right direction, I think that that demonstrates that other people, in my mind, ought to be doing the same thing.
UFC 264 will be headlined by the highly-anticipated trilogy bout between Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor. Stick with MMA News for live coverage of the event.
