UFC 308: Ilia Topuria and Max Holloway make their case for the featherweight title | News, scores, highlights, stats and rumours

Ilia Topuria struggled to find the words.

Asked what life has been like since Dana White strapped his title belt – won with a shocking dismantling of pound-for-pound elite Alex Volkanovski – around his waist eight months ago in Southern California, the cool and confident veneer of the young 27 years disappeared for a short time. .

He blinked. He sighed. He looked around. And then, as if he was back at the Honda Center in Anaheim, stealing the UFC 298 show again, he smiled.

The kind of smile only a champion can understand.

“When you allow yourself to dream big and then have the opportunity to actually achieve it, it can’t be described in simple words,” he said. “It’s amazing. It’s something I wish everyone could experience at some point in their life.”

Max “Blessed” Holloway was there. And while both he and Topuria publicly describe their contentious relationship as competitively cordial, he hopes the Spaniard won’t come out of the weekend as happy as he went into it.

The two fight for featherweight supremacy at the top of the UFC 308 show in Abu Dhabi on Saturday afternoon (US time), and Bleacher Report sat down with them on back-to-back days to discuss, among other things, how much it would mean to leave United Arab Emirates. with the coveted belt.

“Visualization is key in this sport and I’m not going to lie, it’s going to feel pretty good. It’s going to feel really good,” Holloway said. “It’s been a long road. It’s been a long time. A lot of disappointments. But we’re going to get the last laugh.”

It’s not hard to understand his eagerness for a redemptive moment. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that another title shot for Holloway, let alone another reign, seemed like a pipe dream.

A pro since 2010, the now 32-year-old reigned at 145 pounds from mid-2017 to late 2019, defending three times before meeting his personal nemesis in a then-unheralded Volkanovski – who defeated him by unanimous decision at the UFC. 245, escaped with a split verdict seven months later and ended the trilogy with a five-round shutout at UFC 276 two years ago.

The kindest advice after the fight was for Holloway to find another weight class. Others went a step further and suggested, with 30 often punishing pro fights on his resume, he should hang up the gloves.

“A lot of people said I would never be able to fight for the 145 title again,” he said.

“They said I should retire because I have nothing left, nothing left to prove. Since they’ve been able to track me since I was 20, they think I’m in my 40s. But I’m only 32 and I’m just hitting my first one and I can remind them again.”

Three wins, two KOs and two performance bonuses — including a cherry-on-the-year knockout of Justin Gaethje for the company’s “BMF” belt at UFC 300 — have already gone a long way toward making it, but you’ll forgive Topuria for not being, or at least not acting, too impressed.

It’s no surprise, considering he’s an unblemished 15-0 since his own debut as a teenager in 2015 and had put together two unanimous decisions, three KOs and a submission in the UFC before Volkanovski’s clinically effective finish , when they met last winter.

Volkanovski, by the way, hasn’t lost to anyone not named Islam Makhachev since 2013.

“Not at all,” Topuria said, when asked if he noticed anything in particular when he saw Holloway fight. “He doesn’t have the power to blow my lights out. There’s a lot of volume, but nothing on the ground. It’s all kickboxing, not MMA. I don’t see specific strengths.”

Hard words, of course. But before you dismiss them as predictable pre-battle banter, consider that they were delivered in the relaxed, even tone of a guy who just finished a spa day.

And if you think he’ll be worried about appearing overconfident, think again.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I know my abilities and at the same time I trust that only good things will happen in the fight and in my future. If someone thinks someone else is the best in the weight class, I don’t like to complain. whatever if I don’t like it, I’ll change it.”

What he hopes to change the most is Holloway’s opinion when it comes to what their fight looks like.

Although reviews of Holloway’s fight with Gaethje – particularly the final sequence in which the Hawaiian challenged his foe to a center slugfest – were universally stellar, Topuria dismissed it as just a highlight and pleaded for his impending rival to it starts like that. mode.

His objective? Tying or bettering the UFC record for fastest knockout by strikes – six seconds – set by Duane Ludwig on a Fight Night show in 2006.

“Everybody shows the last 10 seconds, but where was that for the rest of the fight?” Topuria said. “That’s how we’ll decide who the real BMF is. A real BMF stays in the center and fights, he doesn’t come out. I hope he does. Fingers crossed for that.”

The Holloway vibe? Don’t hold your breath, buddy.

“The moment was the moment because of the way the (Gaethje) fight went, and you do it at the end,” he said. “It’s called the ‘Blessed Man Forever’ belt.” Now people know her as the worst mother-effer belt. But it’s not the worst mother-effer belt, you know? So at the end of the day, he can think about what he wants to do. Think about it. If he’s going to do that, then he just looks crazy.”