In the highly anticipated UFC 308 main event, undefeated phenom Ilia ‘El Matador’ Topuria scored a fabulous third-round knockout to retain his featherweight championship title against Max ‘Blessed’ Holloway.
Whilst Ilia Topuria’s devastating third-round knockout has stunned the MMA world, the undefeated Spanish-Georgian sensation couldn’t help but crack a smile as he teased that all he’d done was simply follow through on his pre-fight prediction.
Ilia Topuria rips into Max Holloway for refusing his 10-second throwdown
“It feels very normal, very mundane,” Topuria stated on how it feels to make good on his words in such brutal fashion, adding on being the first fighter to finish Max Holloway in the UFC: “I don’t know, I called it – I knew it, I said it, and I did it.”
That being said, ‘El Matador’ did admit that he was a little disappointed in Holloway for not meeting him in the middle of the octagon to slug it out in the first 10 seconds, as had been constantly suggested in the build-up to UFC 308.
“This is what surprised me, that I pointed to the ground, and he didn’t stand with me in the middle of the octagon, and he started doing some bulls*** like this,” said Topuria as he mimicked a Matador waving his cape.
“It was like, you call yourself the bull?! When you called me out, you said ‘I’m the bull and the El Matador is running from me’ – you never see a bull doing this… So, yeah that surprised me a little bit, so I had to change the gameplan a little bit, but at the end of the day, I got the knockout.”
Topuria was talking to the media with two shiny UFC title belts in front of him; his own featherweight world championship and a replica of the silver-plated BMF title that’s technically still held by Holloway.
“I never understood the fact why they didn’t put the BMF belt on the line, it has to be on the line since the first day,” argued the 16-0 superstar, stating how “They didn’t want to make it official, so I’m going to make it official by myself.
“It’s going to be weird for them to promote him as the BMF [champion] but it is what it is, no problem, I’ll just keep it in my house… I’m the new Baddest Mother***** World Champion.”
Interestingly, Dana White himself has also admitted that the promotion should have probably made Holloway put up the BMF title at UFC 308.
“I want to say it was like halfway through the second round, I said ‘S***, we probably should have put up the bad mother****** title up on this fight too cause these guys are both it.”
Ilia Topuria will ‘leave it to the fans’ as to who’s the 2024 Fighter of the Year
With back-to-back knockout wins over Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski, there’s a strong argument that Ilia Topuria has now overtaken Alex Pereira as the frontrunner for the 2024 Fighter of the Year award.
Whilst the Spanish-Georgian superstar is usually happy to market himself, he’s actually staying out of the debate entirely, telling reporters: “Let’s leave that pick to the fans or to the people involved in that election.
“If they want me to be the Fighter of the Year, I’ll be very, very happy, but I don’t know – Alex Pereira is there, I’m right there so let’s let the fans decide.”
Fans might be split on who they think deserves Fighter of the Year, but Daniel Cormier believes that Topuria has just ended the debate entirely.
- WOW: Islam Makhachev’s coach breaks down potential fight against ‘best boxer in the UFC’ Ilia Topuria