Rewatch Every Ilia Topuria fight, prior to UFC title bout!!

[Shaolin Alan]

This looked interesting and I hadn't seen it shared here before.
Feel free to comment towards his evolution as a martial artist. He appears to have started out an aggressive ground fighter, who stays active on top and hunts relentlessly for submissions. His tenure with UFC has certainly shown us he's found his hands and appears to love them. Should be an interesting bout tonight.
Enjoy...

 

[ipowerslapmywife]

His boxing is no joke

 

[MrFreeze]

His foot is terrible. Constantly crosses his feet over and brings them together. Only in an out movement, never lateral besides when on the fence.

 

[BigTruck]

Yeah I was surprised to see he only has 4 kos bc his most recent fights he knocked ppl dead.

 

[HuskySamoan]

Yeah I was surprised to see he only has 4 kos bc his most recent fights he knocked ppl dead.

At the start of his career he was very wrestling and submission centric. Now he's become a lot more boxing focused. He has his issues though, early in his career he got rocked bad by a head kick and then vs that British random at 155 in the UFC he almost got put out again, even Bryce's camp noticed it and Ilia was getting bothered by some high kicks from Mitchell. He just doesn't seem to comfortable with the kicking aspect of the game at all and he does his best work on the onside, I said it about a year ago, I'd like to see him vs someone rangey with good technical striking like a Kattar, Yair, Max, Allen etc. Think it would have told us a lot more about him.

In the pocket he's a dynamo.

 

[Tweak896]

Crazy how much he's improved and changed his entire game from the beginning.

 

[fortheo]

He used to be so skinny in his first few fights. The guy has packed on some muscle as he aged.

 

[fortheo]

At the start of his career he was very wrestling and submission centric. Now he's become a lot more boxing focused. He has his issues though, early in his career he got rocked bad by a head kick and then vs that British random at 155 in the UFC he almost got put out again, even Bryce's camp noticed it and Ilia was getting bothered by some high kicks from Mitchell. He just doesn't seem to comfortable with the kicking aspect of the game at all and he does his best work on the onside, I said it about a year ago, I'd like to see him vs someone rangey with good technical striking like a Kattar, Yair, Max, Allen etc. Think it would have told us a lot more about him.

In the pocket he's a dynamo.

To add to the criticisms, he still throws himself out of position sometimes, everytime I've seen him on his back he accepted being there and tried to play guard instead of wrestling up, his leg lick defense is suspect, and he seems uncomfortable on the back foot

That said, he's still extremely dangerous to everyone in the division and I won't be surprised if he catches volk at some point and puts him out.