Ilia Topuria: Tri-National Terminator
Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC via Getty
Introduction
Finding a way onto his first main card PPV, the twenty-five year old German-Georgian-Spaniard Ilia Topuria delivered a comprehensive two-round beatdown over Bryce Mitchell. A fresh spot in the top ten and a streak of finishes now extended to four create a perfect springboard to high-profile fights at the top of the division. While the top two slots are grasped firmly by two all-time great fighters in Alexander Volkanovksi and Max Holloway, the remainder of the queue of contenders is poised for turnover.
For many, seeing Topuria brutalize Damon Jackson with body shots before knocking him out in the first round immediately marked him as a future contender. When a young fighter who paved his way to the UFC with crushing top control and submissions suddenly starts knocking people dead, people take notice. It’s no surprise to see Topuria in the top ten after only five fights in the promotion, but the competition only gets tougher from here and a second look at his performance at UFC 282 is necessary to evaluate whether he’s ready for featherweight’s elites.
Part 1: Patient Building
Topuria came out in a crouched stance, keeping his hips back to make it harder for Mitchell to get a bite on them for a takedown. From the crouch, Topuria fired jabs to the head and body, mixing in jab feints at both levels to keep Mitchell guessing. The crouch is a well-established stance in boxing and is often favored by shorter fighters who force their opponents to punch down at them while giving themselves a better chance at getting inside and underneath their taller opponents' reach (check out Dwight Muhammad Qawi to see how a short boxer can weaponize his stature). Attacking with his jab to the body with regularity made it more difficult for Mitchell to counter Topuria’s punches with single leg attempts.
Topuria started the fight in a crouched stance and leaned heavily on his jab, to both the head and body, to build his offense.
With a lower center of gravity and retracted hips, Mitchell found it near impossible to get to Topuria’s lead leg without being met with a hard crossface or underhook that immediately killed his attempts to get Topuria down. Even when Mitchell was able to get his hands clasped around the leg, Topuria was still diligent to fight grips and prevent Mitchell from collecting the rear leg and transitioning to a double.
The crouch and Topuria’s readiness to shoot in underhooks put a quick end to most of Mitchell’s single leg attempts.
Another facet of the crouched stance that Topuria utilized was shortening the distance for his right hand as he folded over his lead hip. From this position, Topuria could fire off fast right hands that proved hard for Mitchell to anticipate. Further contributing to the success of his right hands is the body jab, which he threw from the same position and subtly convinced Mitchell to lean forward slightly in an attempt to keep his gut a little further out of reach, but this just put his head in the perfect position to eat Topuria’s right hands.
The body jab and dipping right hand play nicely together as they can both be thrown from the crouch without much of a tell.
In the past, Mitchell has built a lot of his offense off his kicks, so Topuria came ready to counter - and not just the kicks, nearly every time Mitchell carelessly stepped into range he was met with thudding 2 or 3 punch combinations. Topuria’s head movement worked nicely to facilitate his counters and while a craftier boxer might find a way to exploit some of Topuria’s reactions, Mitchell ran out of ideas quickly and started just trying to tank the shots and fire back.
Counters were an important part of Topuria’s success striking, preventing Mitchell from building any sort of offense on the feet.
Part 2: Venomous Grappling
Coming into the fight, many were curious how Topuria, who in his pre-UFC career was primarily a top-position grappler, would fare against another dangerous and relentless top player. His ability to shuck off nearly every takedown attempt meant that we didn’t get to see Topuria tested in this area, however he was content to show off the skills that first made him a highly touted prospect. In the grappling exchanges, we saw that Topuria favors damage and offense over locking down control positions. The first sequence came after Topuria knocked Mitchell down. He subsequently moved to back mount, but rather than getting his hooks in and looking to set up a rear-naked choke, Topuria just used his right hand to control Mitchell’s wrist and hips while bombing on him with his left. This let Mitchell quickly work back to his feet, although he had to eat some serious shots on the way up.
Topuria was content to find a position to throw heavy shots, which allowed Mitchell to work his way back up.
The second and final period of top control for Topuria saw him quickly move from side control to knee-on-belly, where again he immediately looked to start posturing up and causing damage. This forced Mitchell to come up on a single, where Topuria was able to spin around to the back and snatch the arm triangle as Mitchell was attempting to stand up.
Topuria has proven to be an exciting grappler with a primary focus on damage and finishes.
It’s worth also mentioning the final minute of round one, where Mitchell was able to hold Topuria on his back. He showed no urgency to get back to his feet, but it’s easy to forgive this one for now because Mitchell wasn’t doing anything to tire him out or even come close to stealing what was a clearly one-sided round.
Part 3: Some Concerns
It may appear overly critical to point out faults in what was such a straightforwardly dominant performance, however it’s these little mistakes and issues that the very best fighters and coaches will be looking to exploit in future fights. First, an issue that the commentary team, DC and Rogan, actually caught onto pretty early and highlighted well throughout the fight: overthrowing. There was a shift in Topuria after he successfully defended the first prolonged chain wrestling attempt from Mitchell. Perhaps after feeling Mitchell’s grappling, touted as his A-game, Topuria felt that he no longer had anything to worry about because he started to largely abandon the patient jab-focused offensive building and began throwing nearly every shot at 100%. This did put him into some brief bad positions that a fresher and more opportunistic fighter might have been able to exploit, but largely Topuria’s affection for power shots went unpunished.
Topuria abandoned his jab and setups in favor of swinging for the fences.
Some of Mitchell’s best strikes were his front kicks to the body, which Topuria didn’t seem bothered to try to parry. A shorter fighter with a tendency to eschew his straight punches could be vulnerable to being kept on the outside by a mobile striker with good linear kicks. Also, if Topuria continues to show problems with loading up on full-power punches, he will be liable to running out of steam in five-round fights and these kinds of attacks would accelerate that process.
While only getting caught a couple times with these front kicks, Topuria will need to show more urgency in defending these strikes in future fights.
In terms of directionality, Topuria has shown an ability to pressure and an ability to stand his ground at range. However, for a brief moment Mitchell was able to get Topuria moving back and it exposed a potential deficiency in his game. Sometimes fighters can look drastically different on the backfoot when they are able to dictate the terms of the exchanges as opposed to when they are forced back against their will by an aggressive fighter (e.g. Sean O'Malley). All-terrain fighters and boxer-puncher types can be particularly prone to falling into modes - i.e. “now I’m pressuring” and “now I’m boxing on the backfoot”. In the following exchange, Topuria seemed to think he was going to be able to hop back out of range for free, so he wasn’t maintaining his stance or really concerning himself with what Mitchell was throwing much at all. As a consequence, Mitchell was able to find some of his best strikes of the fight.
Topuria looked vulnerable the brief moment where Mitchell was able to back him up. Topuria will need to sharpen up his transitions from pressuring to outside fighting.
Part 4: Gimme More!
Perhaps more encouraging for Topuria’s career is that he has a deeper well of techniques that he could pull from, meaning it’s more likely an issue of comfort, awareness, or gameplanning that results in a narrowing of his skills on fight night. That’s not to say that Topuria didn’t demonstrate a wide array of skills, as highlighted above, but that it’s obvious that he could utilize even more. More diversity isn’t always better (a fact Mike Winkeljohn never seemed to grasp), but there were a couple instances where Topuria found an obviously effective move but bizarrely, it never showed up again and he fell into just winging wild power punches (see above).
First, within the opening moments of the fight, Topuria nailed Mitchell with a low kick that instantly compromised him.
Topuria nearly kicks Mitchell’s leg off twenty seconds into the fight, but strangely never throws another one.
Second, Topuria lanced Mitchell with a thudding right hand to the body, but it was the one and only time he threw it. In the Damon Jackson fight, Topuria leaned heavily into his body punching, so it’s surprising that he relied primarily on his jab to soften Mitchell up rather than his more damaging hook, uppercuts, and straights. This weapon would have paired well with his crouched stance and would have led to fewer instances of missing so big that it threw him off balance.
Topuria has become known as a fearsome body puncher, but his attacks to the midsection were muted in this fight, preferring instead to headhunt.
Last, Topuria seemed to only commit to pressuring for a few brief moments, even though it clearly made Mitchell visibly uncomfortable. Topuria isn’t an archetypal pressure fighter, so he doesn’t rely entirely on forward movement to set up his offense, but it amplifies his power punching game and has resulted in his most brutal knockouts.
Topuria pressured Mitchell in spurts, but more sustained forward movement paired with a more patient shot selection could have resulted in another highlight reel knockout.
Consider Topuria’s lack of pressure in tandem with the issues while moving backward highlighted above. With both of these in view, it is possible to make a case for Topuria having some strategic deficiencies with regard to cagecraft. However, given how good he can look when he does pressure and also when he decides to stand his ground in the center of the cage, it’s not an issue of Topuria being unable to fight in a certain direction but rather that he lacks a bit of focus and doesn’t always have a clear idea of where he should be taking the fight.
Wrap-Up
As the youngest top ten featherweight with a squeaky-clean 13-0 record, Topuria is ready to join Arnold Allen and Movsar Evloev in an assault on the divisional mainstays. There’s a lot to be excited about in a ferociously hard-hitting boxer-puncher with a knack for crushing people from top position. Sure, he has a few areas to work on, but it may be true that he has just as many skills lying dormant that he can begin to incorporate more as he gains comfort and focus. If Topuria can remain at featherweight and avoid being drawn into a meaningless and cringey grudge match with Paddy Pimblett, the many people who labeled him as a future title contender may end up right, and probably sooner than they thought.