A former UFC women's title challenger recently weighed in on Ilia Topuria's reaction to Cristiano Ronaldo after he criticised his path to a featherweight championship. The soccer legend's comments caught 'El Matador' by surprise and he responded by clarifying that he was just confident rather than arrogant.
The comments stem from Ronaldo's appearance at PFL Super Fights: Battle of the Giants, where he was speaking with Francis Ngannou's coach Eric Nicksick in the locker room. 'CR7' shared his thoughts on Topuria's knockout win over Alexander Volkanovski and predicted that Max Holloway would defeat him at UFC 308 because he hadn't fought the top fighters in the division during his surge up the rankings.
While speaking with ESPN, former UFC women's title challenger Megan Anderson shared her thoughts on the Portoguese soccer legend's comments and noted that he wasn't wrong with his opinion.
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Anderson mentioned that Ronaldo made a valid argument, especially considering he defeated Volkanovski shortly after his prior knockout loss to Islam Makhachev:
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"I don't really see anything wrong with what [Cristiano] Ronaldo said. These comments were made before Ilia [Topuria] fought Max [Holloway]...And Ronaldo's not wrong. Ilia didn't really fight a lot of the top guys before fighting 'Volk', he kind of skipped a lot of that line. There was a lot of questions about 'Volk's head space, was he the best him? And he's come out and said he wasn't the best going into that fight." [1:16]
Check out Megan Anderson's comments below:
Megan Anderson says Ilia Topuria's response to Cristiano Ronaldo is understandable
Although she noted that Cristiano Ronaldo wasn't necessarily wrong with his comments, Megan Anderson said that Ilia Topuria's response to him was understandable, considering when the comments were made.
During the aforementioned video, Anderson mentioned that the comments were made prior to Topuria's impressive knockout win against Max Holloway.
"I can understand where Ilia [Topuria] is coming from but I don't really see anything wrong because a lot of us were having questions leading into that Topuria-Holloway fight anyway. It's just now we know what's happened." [2:13]
Check out Ilia Topuria's post-fight interview following his knockout win over Max Holloway below:
