Ilia Topuria: El Toro

A Generational Talent at Featherweight Shines Again

Forging a Legend

Contents:

• A Spectacular Finish

• Stances and Movement

• Back Foot Pressure

• Layer 1: Kicking Battle

• Layer 2: The Jab

• Final Layer: The Intercepting Hook

  

I keep coming back to the fact that Ilia Topuria’s nickname is El Matador when no fighter exhibits ‘El Toro’ more. Charging forward with limited, potent weapons, Topuria forces every one of his opponents to live up to his ring name. Max Holloway gave the best effort, but was ultimately left gored and supine.

Ilia Topuria has now achieved the greatest back-to-back wins in MMA history. The Featherweight championship is a heavy burden; your legacy is tied to four fighters who have been the greatest pound-for-pound talents in MMA. Jose Aldo, Conor McGregor, Max Holloway, Alexander Volkanovski. Three of these four would not be out of place in the top 10 greatest fighters of all time, and Conor McGregor’s talent in his prime cannot be undervalued despite his form post-Eddie Alvarez.

Having separated Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway from their consciousness within 10 months, El Toro has firmly established himself as a worthy successor to the Featherweight lineage. Neither of these men looked out of form either. Max Holloway looked as prepared as a fighter could have. Holloway’s success in this fight cannot be understated, but he was not the man with the belt around his waist at the end of the night. Ilia Topuria cracked the diamond chin of Max Holloway.

A Spectacular Finish

Topuria’s finish was not mere happenstance. You do not knock out Max Holloway through luck alone, there’s a reason he’s survived fight ending shots from Aldo, Poirer, McGregor, and Gaethje. Though his weapons are limited his breadth of skill is exhibited in the array of feints and setups he uses to land his strikes, as well as some exceptional foot work. Topuria accomplishes the most with his jab, left hook, overhand right, and calf kick. Of these, it was the overhand right that began the finishing sequence.

He begins by dipping under Holloway’s hooks, and slowly stepping into range with a jab and left hook feint (V1). Holloway responds to this by throwing some short hooks that do not quite hit the mark, but they both know that Topuria can enter range safely without overcommitting. When Topuria uses this same setup to enter range, Holloway instead exits range by changing stances rather than risking a pocket exchange with a power puncher.

Unfortunately, this leaves Holloway in transition, not rooted in his stance to better absorb strikes, as Topuria follows up his hook as its thrown with an overhand right, visibly stunning Holloway more than any other strike he has taken in his career.

Topuria is not as dynamic as Holloway, which makes him more predictable in some ways, but his style is much more reliable in others. Topuria always fights in orthodox, and is always ‘in stance’, where his feet are always under his hips. Most of his footwork involves small steps that shorten his stance rather than extend it, and as of late has only over thrown when his opponents are backed up to the cage. This leaves him in a position to absorb strikes and return in pocket exchanges with power.

V1

Disclaimer: The video clips included in this article are not owned by the author. They are included for educational purposes only to illustrate key moments in the fighter’s career and demonstrate aspects of mixed martial arts techniques and strategies. All rights to the video content belong to their respective owners.

We see Topuria truly sit down on his punches in V2. At the very end, we see the overcommitment as he falls into the cage once Holloway circles off, but the damage had been done. A prolific body puncher, he reserved his devastating body hooks to fence exchanges in this fight, likely for the best given how they can leave you susceptible to counter (against a sharp counter puncher in Holloway). His power punching is mechanically beautiful as well. He fully rotates his body and hips into every punch, and even takes pauses in the onslaught to frame off and re-asses, giving a beat to change his rhythm and keep Holloway pinned to the cage. Once Holloway circled off, I thought the fight would continue, but this was simply the beginning of the end.

V2

As Holloway returned to the center, you can hear Topuria’s corner urging him to maintain the pressure. Topuria marched forward with combinations, slowly pushing Holloway back until he landed a short overhand right that fulfilled his coach’s wishes (V3). Interestingly, the finish came in a similar way to Topuria’s over Volkanovski. Holloway reaches for a collar tie as Topuria enters range which blocks his hooks, and lands a sharp knee to the body. As Holloway regains his stance to circle off the cage, his hands are low and Topuria is already pivoting outside of Holloway’s lead leg. Topuria’s pivot has his feet facing perpendicular to the line he and Holloway are on, allowing full rotation of his hips into a left hook that drops Holloway. A perfect punch as Holloway is exiting range, and the follow up ground and pound finishes the job.

V3

The finishing sequence was a thing of beauty, and it allowed us to see Topuria’s weapons, footwork, power punching, rhythm changes and different choices in different areas of the cage. This sequence was not an isolated incident of Topuria being the better man though. He was only able to get here in battling through a series of adjustments each man made to each other. Topuria was the star of the night, but he had to work his way through a version of Max Holloway that was performing spectacularly against the problems he presented. Lets find out how Topuria got here, and the struggles he had to overcome in doing so.

Stances and Movement

Everything a fighter does and can do well is borne from their stance and how they move. In V4 we see Topuria and Holloway utilize good fundamental principles of footwork (small steps, shorten the stance before returning to it) to advance and retreat, respectively. Topuria gets his lead foot inside Holloway’s while jabbing, prompting Holloway to hop back just enough to throw some hooks on the inside. The follow up shows Topuria regain inside foot position to throw a hook, and Holloway having to hop out of range and pivot while hooking after slightly over-extending on his previous strike. Both men are also more than adept at gaining slight angles on the advance and retreat (V5) when jabbing, but most of their differences come in their forward movement and commitment.

V4

V5

Topuria has become more reserved since his fight with Bryce Mitchell, where he was over-extending and falling over himself. This does not mean that old habits are ever eviscerated though. Topuria likes to hit with power, and Holloway was more than happy to try and bait this out. In my articles before and after Holloway’s performance against Gaethje at UFC 300, I harp on his newfound love of offensive counter-punching. Holloway has become defensively sound enough to either hop out on an angle (V6), or stand his ground (V7) as Topuria overcommits on his hooks, and nail him with counter strikes. Holloway exploited this tendency often, but not enough for it to change the course of the fight.

V6

V7

Topuria can over-extend himself (head forward of his hips) on straight lines, but Holloway can be caught out of position while changing stances (V1), or moving with punches (V8). I previously broke down how this worked in Holloway’s favor in the Gaethje fight, as the punches masked his movement against a fighter who often blinded himself with the high guard.

While Topuria has a good high guard, he keeps his right hand glued to the side of his head, rather than his forehead, and his lead hand in the open. This allows him to see his opponent and react, sacrificing a bit of proper defense for vision and counter opportunities. Holloway’s large steps while punching simply leave him open without a solid base against Topuria. Holloway often lunges in with his forward moving combinations, despite not punching with power. While it can be a good opportunity to gain a dominant angle, it was not the best tactic to use against Topuria.

V8

Back Foot Pressure

Holloway has been a forward moving dynamo in the past, but his recent form, and that in this fight, was of a back-foot offensive counter-puncher. Topuria on the other hand is always moving forward. As we can see in V9, Topuria’s forward movement was often propagated by being heavy on the rear foot. This sounds counter-intuitive but was key in Topuria’s nuanced entries and feinting.

We can see another difference in Holloway and Topuria’s stances influence their jab feinting (V9). While Topuria is heavy on the rear foot, he can step in hard with his jab and even feint the level change to force Holloway into the defensive, or move him backwards. These step-in feints make his committed entries more difficult to predict while keeping his head firmly above his hips in stance. We see the exact opposite dynamic in Holloway. Though light and moving around the cage, Holloway often stays heavy on the front foot. He steps in and moves his head forward when feinting the jab, using it to keep Topuria aware and cautious.