UFC 308: Ilia Topuria and Max Holloway State Their Cases for the Featherweight Title
Ilia Topuria struggled to find the words.
Asked what life's been like since Dana White fastened a title belt–earned with a shocking dismantling of pound-for-pound elite Alex Volkanovski–around his waist eight months ago in southern California, the 27-year-old's cool, confident veneer briefly vanished.
He blinked. He sighed. He looked around. And then, as if he were back at the Honda Center in Anaheim stealing the UFC 298 show all over again, he smiled.
The sort of smile only a champion can understand.
"When you allow yourself to dream something big and then you have the opportunity to actually achieve it, it can't be described with simple words," he said. "It's amazing. It's something that I wish everyone could feel at some point in their lives."
Max "Blessed" Holloway has been there. And though both he and Topuria describe their publicly contentious relationship as competitively cordial, he's hoping the Spaniard doesn't exit the weekend as blissful as he'll enter it.
The two vie for featherweight supremacy atop the UFC 308 show in Abu Dhabi on Saturday afternoon (U.S. time), and Bleacher Report sat down with them on consecutive days to discuss, among other things, just how much it'd mean to leave the UAE with the coveted strap.
"Visualization is key in this sport and I'm not gonna lie, it's gonna feel pretty good. It's gonna feel really good," Holloway said. "It's been a long road. It's been a long time. A lot of naysayers. But we'll get to have the final laugh."
It's not hard to understand his eagerness for a redemptive moment. After all, it wasn't long ago that another title shot for Holloway, let alone another reign, seemed a pipe dream.
A pro since age 2010, the now-32-year-old reigned at 145 pounds from mid-2017 to late 2019, defending three times before running into his personal nemesis in a then-unheralded Volkanovski–who beat him by unanimous decision at UFC 245, escaped with a split verdict seven months later and finished the trilogy with a five-round shutout at UFC 276 two years ago.
The kindest post-fight advice was that Holloway find another weight class. Others went a step further and suggested, with 30 often-punishing pro fights on the resume, he lay down the gloves.
"A lot of people said I would never, ever be able to fight for the 145 title again," he said.
"They said I should just retire because I had nothing else, nothing left to prove. Since they got to watch me since I was 20, they think I'm like 40-something years old. But I'm only 32 and just hitting my prime, and I get to remind them again."
Three wins, two KOs and two performance bonuses–including a KO of the Year-worthy icing of Justin Gaethje for the company's "BMF" belt at UFC 300–have gone a long way toward doing it already, but you'll forgive Topuria for not being, or at least not acting, too impressed.
It's not surprising given he's a pristine 15-0 since his own teenage debut in 2015 and had strung together two unanimous decisions, three KOs and a submission in the UFC before the clinically effective second-round finish of Volkanovski when they met last winter.
Volkanovski, by the way, hadn't lost to anyone not named Islam Makhachev since 2013.
"Not at all," Topuria said, when asked if he noticed anything particular when he watched Holloway fight. "He doesn't have the power to take my lights out. There's a lot of volume but nothing on the ground. It's all kickboxing, not MMA. I don't see any specific strengths."
Hard words, to be sure. But before they're dismissed as predictable pre-fight bluster, consider that they were delivered in the relaxed, even tone of a guy who'd just finished a spa day.
And if you think he'll be concerned by the appearance of overconfidence, think again.
"I don't care," he said. "I know my skills and at the same time I have faith that only good things are going to happen in the fight and in my future. If someone thinks someone else is the best in the weight class, I don't like to complain about anything. If I don't like it, I'll change it."
What he's hoping to change most is Holloway's mind when it comes to how their fight looks.
Though the reviews of Holloway's fight with Gaethje–particularly the final sequence in which the Hawaiian invited his foe to a center-cage slugfest–were universally stellar, Topuria dismissed it as merely a highlight and pleaded for his imminent rival to begin their scrap the same way.
His objective? Equalling or bettering the UFC's record for fastest-ever KO via punches–six seconds–established by welterweight Duane Ludwig on a Fight Night show in 2006.
"Everyone points to the last 10 seconds, but where was that for the rest of the fight?" Topuria said. "That's how we'll decide who is the real BMF. A real BMF stays in the center and fights, he doesn't step out. I hope he does it. I'm crossing my fingers for it."
The vibe from Holloway? Don't hold your breath, pal.
"The moment was the moment because of the way the (Gaethje) fight was going, and you do it at the end," he said. "It's called the 'Blessed Man Forever' belt. Now people know it as the baddest mother-effer belt. But it's not the dumbest mother-effer belt, you know? So at the end of the day he can think what he wants to think. If he's gonna do that, then he just looks crazy."
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