Ilia Topuria KO’s Alexander Volkanovski to claim featherweight championship in UFC 298 main event
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returned to us tonight, February 17, 2024, for UFC 298, going down live from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
Headlining the event was a featherweight championship bout between Alexander Volkanovski (26-4) and no. 3 ranked Ilia Topuria (15-0).
Alexander Volkanovski suffered both his first and second octagon defeats last year in 2023, going 1-2 on the year with both losses coming up at 155 lbs against UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev. Short of those two fights Volkanovski had gone 13-0 inside the octagon and aimed to make the sixth defense of his featherweight title tonight.
Ilia Topuria on the other hand came in having gone a perfect 6-0 into his UFC tenure to date, most notably becoming the first man to ever defeat no. 10 ranked Bryce Mitchell, following that win up with another over no. 7 ranked Josh Emmett last June, a fight he secured three 10-8 rounds in.
Continue reading to see how our featherweight championship main event of the evening went down:
Official Result: Ilia Topuria def. Alexander Volkanovski via KO (punches) at 3:32 of round two
Volkanovski gets right to work with his leg and body kicks in the early goings of the contest. Topuria lands a hard right hand about one minute in, and soon after lands a vicious leg kick that wobbled Volkanovski’s balance.
Topuria landed his right hand a couple more times and continued utilizing his leg kicks through the remainder of the opening round. Volkanovski however evaded much of his offense and landed an array of kicks and punches himself, winning the first round 10-9 on all three judges’ scorecards.
Topuria lands a hard two-punch combination early in round two, though Volkanovski’s angles and footwork keep him out of danger, up until he gets caught with another vicious combination. Topuria unloads on Volkanovski, landing a series of right hands that KO him stiff just over three minutes into round two.
There were a lot of parallels between Ilia Topuria and Conor McGregor when he took the belt from Jose Aldo back in 2015 at UFC 194 going into this fight:
- Both are from Europe
- Both challenged longtime champions for the belt
- Both were on 14-fight win streaks going into their undisputed title shots
- Both were 6-0 in the UFC
- Both were champs outside of the UFC
- Both were 27 years of age when they became UFC featherweight champion
- Amongst the similarities in the picture below
- Both were the first to bring UFC gold back to their home countries – Conor McGregor became the first ever Irish UFC champion, Ilia Topuria just became the first ever UFC champion from Spain
Ilia Topuria remains undefeated by stopping the reign of one of the greatest fighters to ever do it tonight at UFC 298, becoming our new UFC featherweight champion. Alexander Volkanovski was the no. 2 ranked pound-for-pound fighter on the planet going into this fight, and Topuria just made it look easy.
Topuria is a BJJ black belt and has been for some time now; he began his career submitting everyone, securing his first seven-straight wins via submission. Since then he’s won just one fight via submission, submitting a fellow BJJ black belt in that fight, and five via knockout, all four of which were violent KO’s with not a single TKO.
Having just turned 27 years of age in January, Topuria will be a serious problem for anyone he faces over the next several years.
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