He warned him. Ilia Topuria assured before facing Aleksander Volkanoski at UFC 298 that he was going to become featherweight champion. It hasn’t turned out exactly as he imagined – he had envisioned a KO in the first round – but he wasn’t wrong. El Matador is the new UFC champion after knocking out the Australian champion in the second round.
A combination of blows culminated with a powerful right hand to Volkanovski’s jaw was enough to knock down the former champion, who has two KOs in a row, and for the featherweight belt to become Topuria’s. Now, the Spanish-Georgian fighter begins his reign, undefeated at 15-0 and clear about who he wants to be next: Conor McGregor. “If you still have the balls, I’ll be waiting for you in Spain,” he snapped at the Irishman.
Although he has never lost, Topuria’s career has not been easy. His triumphant return from a medical setback during the UFC 270 weigh-in demonstrates his resilience. He has always been confident that no one can beat him and that he is a very different rival from the rest. “I’m going to retire him,” he said of Volkanovski. This self-confidence is one of his hallmarks. But it’s not talk.
Beating opponents such as Bryce Mitchell, Josh Emmett and now Volkanovski, Topuria has not only demonstrated his ability to overcome adversity – he is booed in all his fights, for example – but also his determination to climb the ranks and earn a chance – absolutely taken advantage – to become UFC champion.
Topuria’s presence in the most recognized MMA company has not only raised his prestige as an athlete, but has also contributed to popularizing mixed martial arts in Spain, a country with a growing love for this contact sport.
One of the next steps thanks to its meteoric rise is to build bridges so that the UFC can come to Spain in 2025, something that a few months ago was unthinkable. It remains to be seen if McGregor accepts or it will be another fighter who can get into the octagon with Topuria and even fight for the title.
But who is Ilia Topuria outside the octagon? Born in Germany, but raised in Alicante since the age of 15, this 27-year-old fighter has found the perfect place in Club Climent to forge his career. There he learned the secrets of jiu jitsu until reaching the black belt, becoming the first Georgian to achieve it.
But his story began much earlier, on the judo mats at the age of 4 in Germany and then in the disciplines of kyokushinkai and Greco-Roman wrestling in Georgia, showing his passion and talent for martial arts from an early age. It is this lifestyle that has led him to face the best of the best in the UFC.
Ilia goes by the nickname El Matador, something he is very proud of. Not only for his fighting style and his ability to finish fights quickly, but also as a tribute to his host country. “I feel super Spanish”, he has come to say. But beyond the blows and submissions, Topuria considers himself a family man, forged in the values ??of effort and honesty that his parents instilled in him.
Despite the challenges he has had to overcome throughout his life, including a childhood complicated by his parents’ divorce, having to flee the war between Russia and Georgia in 2008, and adapting to a new culture when moving to Spain in the midst of adolescence, Topuria has been able to find his way thanks to sport with his brother Aleksandre, who is also a wrestler. Although he was not always able to dedicate the vast majority of his time to the octagon like now: there were times when he was a hammocker in Alicante, a cashier or night security personnel.
Now, fully integrated and generating hundreds of thousands of euros per month, he will be a father again. The fighter, who already has a son, has recently announced that his partner, businesswoman Giorgina Uzcategui, is pregnant and they will have their first child together.
