Ilia
Topuria almost let the nerves get the better of him ahead of
his first professional fight.
Topuria (17-0) recently admitted that he was really scared going
into his first professional fight in 2015. While “El Matador”
started questioning his career choices, he was also motivated at
the same time. Topuria claims that even the thought of not showing
up to the fight at all crossed his mind. While Topuria was only 18
years old, his opponent was already a seven-fight veteran by
then.
‘I Went Through Hell’
“I was so scared for my first professional fight,’ Topuria said on
DeepCuts with VicBlends. “I was like, ‘Why
didn’t I study? What am I doing here?’ I was so scared but at the
same time so motivated… It was so weird. I went through hell, I
remember, that day. I was about to stay in the backstage. I had
that thought. And he had way more experience than me. I was 18
years old at that time.”
Topuria won his first fight against Francisco
Aspirilla in the first round via triangle choke. The undefeated
Georgian-Spaniard finished all eight of his opponents before making
his UFC debut, going past the first round only once. In his last
three outings, Topuria knocked out Alexander
Volkanovski to win the
UFC featherweight title, knocked out Max
Holloway to defend it, moved up and knocked out Charles
Oliveira to win the lightweight title. Topuria now puts his
lightweight title on the line against interim champ Justin
Gaethje at
UFC White House on June 14.