More than anything,
UFC 298 will likely go down in history as a changing of the
guard in the featherweight division.
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Ilia
Topuria ended the lengthy championship reign of Alexander
Volkanovski in emphatic fashion, knocking out the Aussie
standout with a clean right hook at the 3:32 mark of Round 2 at the
Honda Center in Anaheim, California, on Saturday night. Prior to
the finish, the fight was quite competitive, with Volkanovski
taking the opening stanza on all three judges’ scorecards.
Ultimately, it was a matter of Topuria figuring out his opponent’s
timing and finding the right opening.
“First of all, I don’t need the judges,” Topuria said at Saturday’s
post-fight press conference. “When I’m fighting, they can go and
take their time to break. The guy [Volkanovski] was really fast,
very fast jabs. With his kicks, he surprised me a little bit. It
took me a little time to study him, and I had to knock him out in
the second round.
“I was just waiting to find my timing,” Topuria added. “He caught
me with a couple of punches and he was celebrating, like ‘hahaha.’
I was like, ‘Now it’s my turn, wait for that, wait for that.’ The
game plan since the first moment was to do long combinations, not
just a one-two. Because It’s more difficult to read long
combinations than just combinations with two punches.”
For a long time, Topuria’s central focus was to capture a belt. Now
that the moment has arrived, he doesn’t quite have the next step
planned out just yet.
“Right now, I don’t know,” he said. “My goal since the beginning
was to become a UFC world champion. I have to go home. I have to
meditate, visualize what are going to be the next steps I’m going
to take. But for sure, I’m going to make some big steps.”
One obvious possibility would be to give Volkanovski an immediate
rematch due to his standing as one of the great featherweight
champions in UFC history. Topuria offered only a lukewarm reaction
to that option.
“He’s such a good person. To be honest, at this point, I’m like, OK
I’m gonna give him the rematch because he’s a good person, but at
the same time, it’s time to move on,” Topuria said. “It’s time to
clean up the division. It’s time for the new generation to have new
challengers, new faces. I will be looking for that. To be honest,
my job is to fight. Whoever they’re going to tell me I’m going to
have to face and fight next, I will be there.”
Topuria also remained dismissive of some of the other top
contenders in the division such as Max
Holloway, Yair
Rodriguez and Brian
Ortega. Holloway is moving to 155 pounds to face Justin
Gaethje for the “BMF” title at UFC
300, while Rodriguez and Ortega will square off at
UFC Fight Night 237 in Mexico City on Saturday.
“All of them, they don’t make any sense for me right now,” Topuria
said. “As I said, I need new challengers. New ones. There are some
upcoming fights , and we’ll see how they’re gonna play out. You’re
gonna see ‘El Matador’ for a while.”
When it comes to new challengers, Movsar
Evloev stands out as perhaps the most intriguing option for
Topuria. The two featherweights were even supposed to meet at UFC
270 before Evloev withdrew, but the new champion believes something
is missing from Evloev’s record.
“Movsar is a good fight for me. I would love to fight him,” Topuria
said. “But the guy has eight fights in the UFC, eight decisions.
Zero submissions, zero knockouts.
“Man, come on. He needs to finish someone. The record he has right
now, it seems nice. He’s undefeated, but the guy doesn’t finish
anyone. He needs to do something.”
His post-fight callout of Conor
McGregor aside, Topuria admitted that as of right now, a
Volkanovski rematch might be the most likely option.
“At this point, I think that’s the fight in the division that makes
more sense than any fight,” he said. “We’ll see. I have sit down
with my management, with the UFC and we’ll see what the future is
holding for me.”