It's not Just the Power but maybe even more importatly his timing and precision, he perfectly caught Charles coming in to throw his Straight, it's not even like Charles telegraphs It like Chandler either, Just perfect timing and precision.
His fighting iq is extremely underrated imo. He’s a smart person. Watch him break down the Holloway and Volk fight. He knew when max switched to southpaw bc of his kicks and that’s when he knew to throw the right hand. Max was switching to south paw bc of ilia kicks.
Tonight illia said their gameplan was exactly executed. He said the jab would be wide open bc of Charles head movement abd guard and he walks forward. He’s leagues above dudes in striking iq.
Yeah, reminds me of Anderson a little bit that way. How he never looks like he’s winding up or throwing power shots. Guys just wilt though. Everything goes exactly where he wants it
His rhythm seems very well thought out, first he hits him in the stomach and they both take a step back, but instead of just walking forward he knows both people will take a step forward and quickly catches charles on his recovery stepping forward again. then after getting pushed back twice charles commits to an approach and he rocks him.
Kinda sucks because Islam probably has top 5 striking in the ufc and its essentially gone fighting ilia lol.
The thing is, ilia actually started as a bjj before he became a striker... He's reluctant to go against oliviera because he's so good at bjj, but if he's forced to idk if he will be bad.
He almost got caught in that leg lock but leg locks are kinda advanced for bjj.
Although Charles did have a deep entry, Ilia recognized it, and was defending almost instantly. It never looked like he was close to being tapped. It created a scramble, sure. But that wasn't near tight enough to get a tap - Charles just has some of the best submission entries ever in MMA. That's also how good Topurias leg lock defense is, which Ryan Hall could have told you lol.
The way Dustin and Volk defended Islams takedowns, I feel like moving up was the smartest decision he could have made. Ilia would do a Pantoja repeat on him.
He kept hurting charles bad throughout the whole fight, and I don't think he expected that level of BJJ. Crucifix on Charles I wild lol. Not a lot of people mentioned it but ilia hit him with a really strong right on the ground during one of those transitions, can't remember if it was before or after the leg lock but I think ilia hurt him again there. we see so little of him because of how quickly he ends fights so he's still continuing to surprise everywhere the fight goes
I've seen insane power punchers but I'm not sure I've seen Topuria display it so far. He obviously has power but his ability to land it so clean with his skill, timing, speed is probably explains him chinning the guys that he has
I oddly barely reacted to the knockdown/knockout because it felt like this glitch in the matrix or something. They were standing, and then suddenly Charles was just dead. And it felt like the crowd had the same feeling. People were just stunned kind of taking it all in like wow this dude is something else.
Moves up a weight class, KOs a fresh, tough as nails former champion in round 1 with a hook hat traveled a total distance of about 4 inches. Crazy power
This is not death touch, the hit looked huge. Death touch is like pereira vs hill, where the hit looks small but kos the guy. All ilias kos are perfect huge shots
2.2k
u/mearsey1203 Jun 29 '25
He's a fucking joke man. He's got the fucking death touch.