If they had battled, Cory Sandhagen believes Islam Makhachev would have been overwhelmed by Ilia Topuria. In order to confront Makhachev (27-1 MMA, 16-1 UFC), Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) gave up his UFC featherweight title and moved up to lightweight. However, Makhachev gave up his title to move to welterweight, therefore Topuria will not get the battle he had hoped for. Sandhagen believes Makhachev most likely experienced the same fate as Topuria, who used the power to knock out Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway back-to-back. "I'm going to actually go against what most people say, and I honestly think Ilia would win that fight," Sandhagen stated on the "Overdogs Podcast." "I do, but it's a hot take. It will be difficult for Islam to defeat him, in my opinion, and if those two are still alive, I simply believe that Ilia is a very dangerous man, and I simply cannot imagine Islam harming him because of how strong his defense is. That one, I believe, will go to Ilia. Sandhagen is not very interested in Makhachev's upcoming bout with Jack Della Maddalena, the recently minted UFC welterweight champion. "I have watched a bunch of JDM's fights, and I know that he's real good, but I don't really want to see JDM fight Islam honestly," Sandhagen stated. "I find it annoying when a champion fights a man in a lesser weight class after winning a title. Before too lot of that stuff begins happening, I would like to watch JDM fight at 170 for a while. I would really like to see the fight between Islam and Ilia, as well as between Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall. When Topuria competes against Charles Oliveira (35-10 MMA, 23-10 UFC) for the vacant 155-pound title in the UFC 317 main event on June 28, the former champion will still have the chance to win a second title.