Ilia Topuria certainly can’t be accused of lacking confidence.
The former UFC featherweight champion Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) is set to make his highly anticipated debut in the 155-pound division this weekend when he faces Charles Oliveira (35-10 MMA, 23-10 UFC) for the vacant lightweight title in the main event at UFC 316.
Ahead of the highly anticipated clash at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday, “El Matador” noted that—despite Oliveira’s impressive list of accomplishments over his long career—the former UFC lightweight champion has bitten off more than he can chew by accepting this matchup.
“You can't ever count him out because he's a dangerous guy”, Topuria said during an interview with Ariel Helwani on Monday. “He has the most finishes in the UFC history. But I don't know. I have faced those kinds of situations many, many times with Volk, with Max Holloway. They were like unbeaten…like, no one could beat them. No one (could) knock them out. And they always had this thing in their mind, like, ‘oh, I faced this guy and that one and that, and no one could knock me out.’ But you never faced me. You never faced someone who's as skillful as me.
“This is what I'm saying since a long time ago. The skill development I'm bringing to the sport, they never felt it. They never saw it. So this is what's going to happen with Charles. He thinks that he has some opportunities, but the reality is that he hasn't. The only thing he has to do is show up and I'm going to do the rest.”
After working his way into title contention at 145 pounds, Topuria shocked the MMA world by finishing the division’s dominant champion, Alexander Volkanovski, to win the belt. He then became the first man to knock out former titleholder Max Holloway in his first title defense.
This weekend’s main event will mark the Spanish-Georgian’s third consecutive bout against a current or former UFC champion—and he’s predicting the same outcome once again.
“I’m going to finish him in the first round”, he told Helwani. “Because he walks forward. This is all I need. The time that (it) takes me always to knock out my opponents is the time that takes me to close the distance because they run away. They run, they move side to side. And once I close the distance and I go with my combinations, I knock them out. But with Charles, I'm not going to need to close the distance because he walks forward. And this is all I need to take his lights out. Like, just try to stay in the middle of the Octagon. Just try to do that. And you are not going to see me coming.”
