Appears fight is finally confirmed. Perhaps Ilia was saying all that stupid shit to hype the fight or hype himself, who knows? It was annoying and stupid for a fresh champ with zero defenses to be acting that way but alas we’re in the post-McGregor era.
If confirmed, def one of the best fights of the year and in years. Wonder if moving back down to FW will effect Max and some of that new found power at LW? Or is he just sitting down on his punches more?
Weasle seems to think Max’s style will make for a better fight than Volk. I hope so. I’ve come to hate Ilia and this current breed of try too hard personas but can’t hate on the fact that he seems to have it all - technical and power striking, wrestling, GNP, BJJ. We haven’t seen him blend it all together thus far cuz I guess he hasn’t needed to but I agree with Weasle that he prob should vs Max.
The height difference might make it interesting as Ilia also stands low and Max’s team always prepares well.
Max has that legendary Hawaiian chin but don’t think it’s wise for anyone to take too many clean Topuria hands. Not sure how long Max’s chin will stand for but we just saw old man Nate’s chin still intact.
How is Ilia’s cardio? Don’t think he has gone past 3 rounds yet right? He seems to pace decently.
Hope Max can humble this try hard. Ilia’s prob not too bad in reality but can’t stand his publc persona. Does that make me wanna see him lose even more - hell yeah.
We all thought this was gonna happen with Gaethje would be the standard answer. Perhaps Ilia is better than Justin but Justin still has massive power as we know and is bigger. I think Ilia has thr ability to hurt Max but Max’s footwork looked solid too vs Justin.
Love Volk too but a 3rd straight KO is not what he needs right now. Yes Ilia is a badass in the ring, sad he thinks he’s gotta act like a diva/connor to be the Man. He’s probably not like that.
Exactly, illia is very exciting and great to watch, and yeah he doesn’t need to act like Conor,
And I don’t like fighters that copy this when its forced and put on YouTube twitter, in ring call outs…
Also wondering while I sure Ilia being on his rise up is still improving but while he battered Emmett, he wasn’t able to put him away. I know Volk doesn’t have the best chin but he puts away Volk in 2 while he couldn’t put Emmett away. Although checking his record I see that Emmett and his UFC debut are the 2 decisions wins out of 15 in his career which is super impressive. And as mentioned he beat Emmett the fuck up.
