Top-ranked Featherweight contenders Lerone Murphy and Movsar Evloev were both spurned by the UFC.
On Thursday, UFC CEO Dana White announced the plan for the Featherweight division: champion Alexander Volkanovski will fight Diego Lopes a second time in the main event of UFC 325 from Sydney, Australia on January 31. Volkanovski beat Lopes via unanimous decision back in April, and Lopes has only won a single (though very exciting) bout since then.
Safe to say, it’s a little too soon for the rematch, especially when there are other great contenders available. The two red-hot options that come to mind are Lerone Murphy and Movsar Evloev. Not only are both men undefeated, but they’re each riding nine-fight UFC win streaks over quality competition. You could argue either man’s streak as the superior run, but it’s clear that one of them have earned the next shot and should be next in line.
Reacting to the news on X, a disappointed Murphy wrote, “Missing the opportunity to fight one of featherweights goats is what hurts me the most. It’s not about who’s the best anymore. It’s about who’s most popular.”
Meanwhile, Evloev is now angling to fight Murphy in an attempt to make himself undeniable as the next contender. “Leon Murphy I will give you the opportunity to fight the number one contender,” Evloev wrote on X. “Tell your people your ready to fight me on the same card as the championship.”
By UFC fighter trash talk standards, that’s a pretty mild call to action. Murphy, however, does not seem to like Evloev’s tone. Though he didn’t tag Evloev in his response or name him directly, Murphy quickly replied with a post about a “disrespectful” guy alongside an incredibly blurry gym photo of a seemingly unconscious fighter. In a since-deleted post, Murphy also included a sparring “before” photo accompanied by the caption, “He ain’t undefeated.”
Obviously, we’re looking real close at roughly four pixels here, but the MMA investigative community is convinced that this is indeed Movsar Evloev and Lerone Murphy sparring. Therefore, the obvious implication here is that Murphy is claiming to have knocked out Evloev in sparring and might even have a video of it.
As we all learned in the Cody Garbrandt vs. TJ Dillashaw saga years ago, what happens in the gym matters much less than an actual sanctioned cage fight. Still, this is one way for Murphy to build heat, and it could finally secure a true title eliminator match for both athletes.
