Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Featherweight champion Ilia Topuria vs. former Featherweight kingpin and Baddest Motherf—ker (BMF) Max Holloway is only eight days away (Sat., Oct. 26, 2024), and the fight, which goes down at UFC 308 inside Etihad Arena on “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi, UAE, is heating up.
For the most part, Topuria has been saying he will knock Holloway out, just like he did Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298 this year (watch it). However, today (Thurs. Oct. 17, 2024), the champion revealed that his grappling is better than his boxing and will submit “Blessed” if the fight goes to the floor.
“Imagine, in the fight, [Holloway] starts to run around inside the octagon, and he doesn’t stop to exchange punches with me and really fight,” Topuria told Kevin Iole. “I can take the decision to take him down whenever I want. As soon as I take that decision, I will submit him. As soon as he touches the ground, he will be submitted.
“Look, I don’t want to take credit from Max Holloway because he demonstrates that he is a very good fighter with a lot of experience. But at the same time, he’s never faced anyone like me. Never ever. The moment that I take him down – if that happens, if I don’t knock him out before, I don’t think he’ll be able to stop my submissions. Trust me, I’m very, very good on the ground. I think I’m better on the ground than I am in striking. The thing is, people have never seen my ground game because I haven’t needed it,” Topuria concluded.
“El Matador” is telling the truth about his ground game. It is very good, and he was considered a grappler long before he started knocking people dead. His first seven professional fights ended via submission (six in the first round). Topuria then fell in love with boxing, and now he prefers knocking people out.
Now, will he submit Holloway?
“Blessed” has only been submitted once in his 33-fight career, and that was to Dustin Poirier in his UFC debut at UFC 143: Diaz vs. Condit in 2012.
The good thing about this dilemma is that everyone gets to find out in t-minus eight days.