Ilia Topuria’s first rival in the UFC: “After our fight he got furious and knocked out everyone”

After that, the Hispanic-Georgian had four consecutive wins, all of them finished. And for the fifth against Josh Emmett he dominated for the entire five rounds. These impeccable performances gave him the starting opportunity against Alexander Volkanovski, in which Ilia Topuria became UFC champion knocking out the Australian. He later revalidated the belt, also finishing off Max Holloway.

Well, the one who was his first rival in that fight on October 10, 2020, Youssef Zalal commented in an interview on ‘MMA Junkie’ how that decision led him to end all the following fights. “I was the first guy in bringing it to a decisionand that was his first fight in the UFC,” says the Moroccan fighter. And until then, the featherweight champion’s record was eight wins, zero losses and all of them finished.

“Thereafter, he became furious. Literally knocked out everyone Josh Emmett beat him 10-7 in one round. “He screwed everyone,” he continues. The truth is that this first example of Topuria in the UFC is far from the future performances with which he would delight the public. It is also worth noting the rapid change of game that the Hispanic-Georgian experienced. He went from having a style based on the ground and submissions to focusing on boxing and knocking out his opponents.

Outside of Dana White’s company, he accumulated seven submissions and a single knockout in his first eight fights. Within the UFC he has only one submission, two decisions and five knockouts. Furthermore, on rare occasions he has resorted to fighting, preferring to stay in the vertical fight. Consequently, he is now known as a boxer despite his past. This change in the way of fighting also explains the increase in completions after that first fight.