It has just been a month since Ilia Topuria left the world of mixed martial arts in a state of shock. The Spanish-Georgian champion knocked out the ‘unknockable’ Max Holloway in a performance that will go down in history, managing to successfully defend his UFC featherweight title in Abu Dhabi. In Spain, his team was already aware of his potential, all convinced that this was going to happen, but on a global level that he turned off the lights for the Hawaiian was a blow to the table.
Now much more digested of this victory, one of the members of his corner, Jorge Climent, remembers that fight on ABC MMA, which he classifies as “epic.” «Before entering he repeated that I thanked God for giving him the opportunity to be the first to knock out Max Holloway,” says the Argentine coach, one of the pillars of Climent Club.
«Ilia won the first round easily, she even knocked him down. The second round I think Holloway came out to give it his all, I saw him very tired in his corner, Ilia didn’t stop putting pressure and maintaining contact. It forced him to express himself. When he came out to the third he hit it and it was over. It was a great moment, everything was love, we all hugged each other. Crazy,” remembers Jorge Climent.
Regarding Topuria’s horizon, the coach of the Spanish-Georgian champion has three possible fights in mind. «There are three fights in the limelight: the one that would put him in the legend, which is that of Islam Makhachev, the one with the money that is Conor McGregor and the one that would correspond because he has earned it, which is that of Alexander Volkanovski. Any of these three would be very good, all three are favorable for Ilia,” he points out.
Of course, he has a predilection for one of them, the one that would allow him to enter the legend. «The one I would like the most is the fight against Islam Makhachev, having beaten Holloway against Volkanovski, beating Islam who is another lightweight myth, would become a GOAT (Greatest Of All Times, the best of all time). It is a unique opportunity for our grandchildren’s grandchildren to remember him. I think that’s the best option. I truly see Ilia as superior to Islam, and he also wants to beat him by subduing him because he has never been subdued. It would be a good opportunity,” says Jorge Climent.
WAR 4, a top-level event in Spain
While Topuria’s sporting future is becoming clearer, as there are still several pending negotiations to decide his next fight, the brothers Jorge and Agustín Climent have work at ‘home’. They, together with Diego Moreno, have promoted their own promoter in a new stage: WAR. This Saturday, November 30, they will hold a spectacular event at the Caja Mágica in Madrid, in which some ex-UFC and others who are very close to entering, such as the Canarian Hecher Sosa, will participate.
«It is an important billboard and we have bet very hard to try to fill it and it can accommodate 12,000 people, we are aiming high, let’s see what happens. One of the ways to encourage them to go to the Caja Mágica is to have done the ‘reality show’, through which we have managed to generate a lot of expectations,” says Jorge Climent.
That ‘reality’ thing refers to The Ultimate Warrior (TUW), a program promoted by the WAR promoter in which some fighters have lived together for several days in the same house and then faced each other in a tournament, leaving us with two finals in which will compete for the company’s flyweight and bantamweight titles. «It was something new, which we had never done before, it cost us a lot of work but we evolved and experiencing it from within was spectacular, it was fulfilling another dream. We have seen the boys evolve within,” says the eldest Climent.
In those fights we will see, within the fly title, Borja García ‘The Eagle’partner of Joel Álvarez in the CD Tibet of Gijón, facing one of the pupils of the Climent Club, Ahmed ‘Peligro’ El Idrisi, while in the bantamweight we find the representative of The Black Panther, Cristian Maroñas, against another member from the Climent Club such as Stephane Sebishao. All of these fights, and many more that you can find on WAR MMA’s social networks, can be seen through Mitele. «The first three fights are free and then you can buy the rest of the evening in pay-per-view (PPV) for 3.95 euros and is broadcast worldwide. At 7:25 p.m. the event will begin with the amateur fights,” the company says.
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