The UFC featherweight champion, Ilia Topuria, has emerged as one of the great athletes of the year in Spain. His expertise inside the octagon has allowed him to carve out an immaculate career, the culmination of which, at the age of 27, was the conquest of the UFC world title last February against Alexander Volkanovski in Anaheim (California).
After fastening the featherweight belt, Topuria faced his first title defense, something that allowed him to already enter the conversations of being a solid champion of the division, since in front of him he would have Max Holloway, one of the most dangerous and legendary fighters in the UFC. However, El Matador, as he is nicknamed, managed to knock out the Hawaiian, entering the history books of mixed martial arts.
Now, in an interview with ABC, Ilia Topuria’s Performance Director, Aldo Martínez, has revealed one of the ‘tricks’ that the champion has carried out to train his mental agility. Aldo says that, during the plane trip to Abu Dhabi to defend his title against Holloway, “He didn’t stop playing chess with everyone on the plane for six and a half hours”. A mental exercise that allowed him to stay focused throughout his journey.
In addition, Doctor Aldo has tried to explain to people the difficulty of what it means to be a fighter at the highest level of mixed martial arts. «It is very complicated, because it is a different sport and it is true that you, for example, play for Real Madrid at a high level and high demands, but you have games every weekend, even during the week, in this sport I think the complication is It lies in the fact that you are going to spend many months preparing to fight in 5, 10 or 15 minutes or if you are Ilia, a little less. It is difficult to adjust a ‘planning’ so that in a very short time you have to demonstrate all the work of months or years,” comments the technician.
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