Meet Ilia Topuria, the son of refugees and high school dropout set to replace Conor McGregor as the face of the UFC

The Sun

a day ago

THE Ultimate Fighting Championship is potentially just days away from having a new poster boy.
And it's somewhat fitting that the potential coronation of mixed martial arts' premier promotion's new king will take place nearly four years to the day that Conor McGregor - the face of the sport for several years - had what looked to be his final outing.
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Many have long thought the heir apparent to McGregor's throne was 'Suga' Sean O'Malley, although back-to-back championship defeats to Merab Dvalishvili have seen the former bantamweight king's sweetness fade.
The man poised to succeed 'The Notorious' is a Georgian-born Spaniard who made a statement on the prelims of what with increasing certainty looks to be the last McGregor card in UFC history.
The man in question is former featherweight champion Ilia Topuria, who will bid to further write his name into the history books early on Sunday morning in the main event of UFC 317 in Las Vegas.
Undefeated Topuria will do battle with fellow fan favourite and former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira for the vacant 155lbs belt, which the dominant Islam Makhachev left aside.
Becoming the TENTH two-weight champion in UFC history in the fashion he claimed and defended the featherweight title will catapult Topuria into a new stratosphere, one he always believed he'd reach.
Topuria, 28, was born in 1997 in Halle, Germany, where his parents were granted refuge during the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia in the '90s.
It was in Germany that Topuria would discover the sport of Greco-Roman wrestling, which he practised along with his younger brother, Aleksandre.
The Topuria family would eventually return to Georgia, where the brothers would continue their education in Greco-Roman wrestling, in 2003.
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Eager to provide a better life for their children, Topuria's parents, Zaza and Inga, moved the family to Alicante, Spain, in 2012.
Not long after their arrival, Topuria's mother spotted a man sporting cauliflower ears and asked him if he knew where her sons could continue their training.
Watch jacked Ilia Topuria complete epic UFC 317 body transformation after ditching crash diet to lose over 40lbs
That chance encounter paved the way for Topuria to start his mixed martial arts journey under the tutelage of the Climent brothers, Agustin and Jorge.
The Topuria brothers' passion for MMA was so fervent that they both asked their dad if they could DROP OUT of school to pursue their dreams of fighting in the UFC.
In 2022, Ilia said of his early teenage years in Spain: 'Yes [it was hard to communicate], but I left school when I was like 15 years old.
'When I was 15 years old, I went with my brother to talk with my father to tell him, 'Hey, dad.
''We don't want to go to school any more, but we really want to train.
'And we're going to the gym all day, every day, and we're going to train.'
'Because my dream was to fight in the UFC. And he told me, 'If you're really going to train all the time like you tell me, then you have my approval.
'That's one of the reasons why I made my debut so young in the UFC, because it's very tough to get into the UFC from Spain.
'Because I wasn't living in the United States and I wasn't born here, because it's easier.'
Three years after beginning his training with the Climent brothers, Topuria made his professional debut at the tender age of 18.
He'd rip through the competition on the regional and European circuits with eight straight finishes, seven of which came via submission.
The UFC came calling in October 2022 and Topuria hasn't looked back since, stopping all comers bar Youssef Zalal and Josh Emmett - both of whom were battered from pillar to post - on his way to claiming and defending the featherweight crown.
His coronation as featherweight king came last February with a sensational second-round knockout of fan favourite Alexander Volkanovski.
And his final outing in the division last October saw him achieve the previously unthinkable and knock out iron-chinned former featherweight champion Max Holloway.
Topuria's exploits - in particular his championship victories - have seen him become a superstar in Georgia, Spain and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world.
He has a whopping 7.7million Instagram followers, has been recognised by boyhood footie team Real Madrid - who presented him in front of a capacity crowd at the Bernabeu after his KO of Volk - and is pals with Los Blancos legends Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos.
His global following will explode and the celebs in his orbit will only become bigger, even though he doesn't crave the limelight, should he become a two-weight champion in a similar fashion to his featherweight coronation.
The title of 'biggest star in the UFC' is right there for the taking for Topuria.
All that remains now is for him to make it his own in devastating fashion.
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