In the lead-up to the biggest fight of his career, Ilia Topuria showed no signs of weakness.
In fact, he oozed confidence — bordering on cockiness — all week, promising he would knock out the king of the featherweight division.
This being the man who had made five consecutive successful title defences since winning the belt back in 2019. This being Topuria’s first shot at the crown.
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And yet the enormity of what was at stake never seemed to faze the Spaniard. That is, until he flattened Alexander Volkanovski, as he had promised, with a brutal right hook.
Raising his hands onto his head, Topuria — like everyone watching at Honda Center — stood in stunned silence as his team rushed into the octagon, lifting him up into the air.
As much as this was Topuria’s moment, this was also about more than just the 27-year-old as UFC commentator Jon Anik noted, declaring it could trigger a “MMA explosion” in Spain.
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Topuria CRUSHES Volk with brutal KO | 01:18
Topuria was actually born in Germany to parents of Georgian descent before his family moved back to their homeland and then later to Spain, where he now lives and trains.
While Topuria also represents Georgia, his win on Sunday will only further rocket him into superstardom in Spain, where he already had a high profile as he continued to rack up wins in the UFC.
“People from outside the MMA world that don’t even watch the sport are starting to acknowledge his name, and that is something that has never happened before with any MMA athlete here,” Laura Fernandez, the UFC presenter for Eurosport in Spain, told ESPN last year.
“… He’s the main figure in Spanish MMA, and it’s leading the way for the upcoming, young fighters.”
The UFC is also doing its part to capitalise on the popularity of Topuria, partnering with LaLiga for an official sponsorship in November 2022.
As for what that actually looks like, Topuria and Mexican former world champion Brandon Moreno were guests of La Liga at a game last year, for example.
‘Take time off’: Rogan’s warning to Volk | 01:02
“We see Ilia as a standout UFC star for many reasons,” LaLiga North America head of content and distribution Adrian Segovia told ESPN at the time.
“The first is that he’s not just a successful UFC fighter, he’s an incredible overall athlete. He’s hard-working, intelligent, inspiring, a good person and very, very media-savvy. … He is a star and he is going to be a UFC champion one day.”
That day, it turns out, will be the 18th of February, 2024.
Topuria told The Athletic ahead of Sunday’s fight that it would “mean a lot” to become Spain’s first UFC champion.
“Right now we have a big, big fan base in Spain. A really big fan base. Before me, they didn’t know anything about the UFC,” he said.
“But right now we have a really big following in Spain. That’s why they are going to take the UFC to Spain because there’s a huge fan base for MMA. And after this fight, even more so.
“We have a lot of upcoming fighters from Spain that are going to join the UFC really soon.”
With Topuria’s victory, attention now turns to a potential world title fight back home in Spain — potentially coming in the form of a rematch against Volkanovski.
Volkanovski wants his rematch in Spain | 00:53
The Australian said post-fight he would keen on exactly that, although UFC boss Dana White neither confirmed nor denied that was on the cards when asked in his press conference.
Instead, he said it was too soon after Sunday’s fight for him to even have thought about who Topuria would make his first title defence against.
White did though confirm that putting the fight on in Spain was firmly on the radar.
“I want to go to Spain too. We’re going to Spain. If there is a venue available for us, we’ll be there,” he said.
Topuria, meanwhile, as unlikely as it may be, called out Conor McGregor for a megafight in Spain.
“Conor McGregor, if you still have some balls, I want you in Spain,” he said.
The likeliest scenario is that Volkanovski is rewarded for his loyalty and willingness to take on any fight over the years with a rematch, even if he was defeated in such emphatic fashion.
Otherwise, a meeting with Mexican superstar Yair Rodriguez makes plenty of sense given the simmering bad blood between the pair.
Topuria talks KO: ‘That was a cold one!’ | 02:13
“I just don’t f****** like the guy,” Rodriguez told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour this week.
“He talks so much s***, and I think it was an easy way for him to go and fight for the title. I’m not only going to say me, but different fighters, we have to go fight like true warriors, true f****** lions, and this guy, I think it was an easier way to go and fight for the title.
“That’s it. I think the UFC is making it easy for him.”
Topuria certainly made it look easy on Sunday, the way he disposed of Volkanovski in the second round and in the process announced himself as one of the biggest names in the promotion.
It is a stunning turn of events considering Helwani reported on Sunday that Topuria’s deal with the UFC expired at the end of 2023, with chief business officer Hunter Campbell flying to Spain to strike a new agreement with the rising featherweight star.
“They don’t do this for everyone, but they recognised what they had, obviously. That investment is about to pay off in a massive way, it seems,” Helwani wrote.
What they have could be a superstar carving a similar path to McGregor himself according to Hall of Fame fighter Daniel Cormier, who earlier in the week pointed out similarities between the way Topuria was approaching Sunday’s fight to the Irish superstar’s bout with Jose Aldo.
“It seems like all (Topuria) wants to do is put pressure on himself,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel.
“This dude has now said he’s releasing a movie on becoming the champion of the world. This dude has updated his bio with another win and he’s now the UFC featherweight champion.
“This dude has stated he wants to fight in the same stadium where Real Madrid plays football in Spain, This dude has said to anyone that will listen how Alexander Volkanovski cannot compete with him. Most people under these circumstances want to release the pressure – not this dude.
“This reminds me of [when] Conor [was] about to fight Jose Aldo. He told you, and he was so sure that he was going to get it done that you knew that if it happened, he would become a star that we had never seen in the UFC before or in fighting. So when it happened, he went to the moon.
“I feel like Ilia Topuria is setting himself up to have that type of ascent if he can deliver on all of the promises that he is making.”
You can check off one of those promises already.