Ilia Topuria said in the lead-up to his lightweight championship bout with Charles Oliveira that he’d knock out the Brazilian—in the first round no less.
Topuria delivered on his pre-fight machismo, knocking out Oliveira in the opening round of their vacant lightweight title fight at UFC 317 with a short but crisp right to the former champion’s chin followed by a flush left hook and a hammer fist for good measure when Oliveira was on the ground defenseless.
From the looks of it, those last two punches weren’t needed anymore as it appeared that stiff right hand had Oliveira falling to the canvass and out cold already in the 2:27 mark of the very first round.
With his sensational stoppage, Ilia Topuria hiked his record to 17-0 and became the 10th two-division champion in UFC history. But of the promotion’s two-weight titleholders, only Topuria accomplished he feat with an unbeaten record, making it an historic achievement for the former featherweight champion.
“I already said it,” said Topuria, who had held a celebratory dinner two nights before the fight fully expecting a win. “I represent the new era of mixed martial arts. This is the next level of the game.”
Ilia Topuria vs. Paddy Pimblett Next?
Post-fight, the UFC might have hinted at what’s next for Topuria: No. 8-ranked lightweight Paddy Pimblett. The blond fighter from Liverpool and the newly minted lightweight champ have a rather volatile history after Topuria, who is of Georgian descent, took umbrage to Pimblett poking fun at the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 back in 2021.
The bad blood between the two nearly boiled over when the two crossed paths in London in 2022 before a UFC fight card. In that encounter, the Englishman threw a sanitizer at El Matador, who attempted to retaliate with a punch. But members of his team quickly pulled him away to prevent a full-scale brawl. Now, three years later and with a belt on his waist, Topuria looks ready to get it on with Pimblett in the Octagon for real.
“If he thinks he’s ready, come on. You blond b—-,” Topuria said of Pimblett, who was sitting cageside at T-Mobile Arena for Topuria’s fight and actually entered the cage after the Georgian’s history-making win.
While the post-fight spectacle might’ve hinted at an Ilia Topuria vs. Paddy Pimblett fight, the former will have no shortage of challengers, with the most obvious being no. 1-ranked Arman Tsarukyan and no. 3-ranked Justin Gaethje. Dustin Poirier and Dan Hooker, fifth and sixth in the lightweight rankings, are also in the mix, as is former champ Islam Makhachev, who initially vacated the lightweight throne to move up to welterweight.
For now, though, Ilia Topuria can rest for a while. The lightweight division is his at the moment.
