Ilia Topuria is already a top-5 P4P fighter, no debate needed—bring me the next opponent…

That broken-rib Jackson finish wasn’t cheap, it was surgical—the dude had a rib spitting blood by mid-first and Topuria still let him walk straight into hooks from every angle.

how is that "cheap" when he damn near BROKE his rib just to block the kick 😂 that dude was COOKED before the fight even started... Topuria still made him eat the chin music in round 3 🎤 volkanovski? the man hasn't looked same since Conor ran him through, and Makhachev's already lost the belt he got on cheap wrestling 🤬 Jackson? come on man, that man was a 4th round CTRL+ALT+DEL job... our boy made him gas AFTER his own corner emptied the tank 🔥🔥 where's the "hype" when you're left sucking air on the canvas STRAIGHT from Ilia's hands

See, you're coming at the footage like a highlight reel because you're already sold on the idea that Topuria's just ticking boxes on a conveyor belt. But BenReds put his finger on why that Jackson finish wasn't a cheap get—it was Topuria sitting in the pocket with a man whose breathing sounded like a broken vacuum cleaner, yet still picking his spots to drop the hammer. The rib was cracked by Round 1, sure, but by Round 3 Jackson's lungs were giving up air in big gulps every time he tried to square up; Ilia didn't gift that finishing shot, he carved it out of pure pressure and positional control. The dude wasn't cooked before the fight—he was half-alive when the cage touched down, and Topuria still made him submit to the chin music while the ref was deciding whether to wave it off or let it keep going. So when NickFaithful waves this away as "one-sided early rounds," he's ignoring the tape entirely: the first two frames? Boring chess match where Ilia boxed Jackson to a bloody standstill. The last three? Chess turned into checkmate in full view.

ah, those old-school wars when you had to earn every inch in the cage, not just blink and tap your way to a decision. remember pound-for-pound debates back when it actually meant something? you'd sit there with a beer in hand, your skull full of greats like Bisping and Wonderboy in their primes, scratching your head wondering where the next real test was coming from because half those guys were fighting for a rubber chicken and a bus ride. nowadays folks act like p4p rankings are printed on goddamn toilet paper in the bathroom stalls of the mma community. but let me tell you — ilia topuria isn’t ticking any boxes; he’s smashing them one by one while the rest of the division is still arguing over who gets the bigger slice of the fake sugar pie. look at the crew he’s tangled with already: volkanovski, makhachev, jackson — three names that used to make grown men's knees shake. and what does NickFaithful do? he points at a broken rib and laughs like that’s some kind of fluke. brother, volkanovski got his teeth rearranged by conor before ilia ever laid a glove on him, and the australian’s been a shadow since. makhachev? same story — wrestle-fest with gas leaks for the eyes. jackson? dude cracked his own rib blocking kicks just to step on the scales, then ilia made sure his lungs learned how to breathe again inside the cage. that’s not “cheap,” that’s dominance wrapped in a bow you clowns refuse to open. back in my day we didn’t need highlight reels or social media graphs to know greatness — you watched two warriors trade leather in some godforsaken venue until one of them couldn’t lift their arms anymore. today folks want the knockout montage edited down to 30 seconds and labeled “proof.” nah, not here. ilia’s war room isn’t making spreadsheets; it’s making memories in the trenches where old-timers like me still live. we’ve seen the conveyor belt, we’ve seen the hype trains derail — but we’re watching this kid forge something real. so yeah, bring on the next challenger, the real one, the one who hasn’t been half-dead before the first bell. ilia’s ready to carve another chapter — and i’ll be right here with my notebook and a cold one, waiting to see history in the making. ah well, we'll see.

Ever sat in a cramped Toronto bar in the dead of winter with your breath fogging up the window just to watch Topuria’s last Jackson card on a flickering projector screen, and by Round 3 you could feel the building lean toward the cage because every gasp from the crowd was literally audible through the speakers? That wasn’t hype, that was twenty minutes of Ilia surgically flaying a man who’d already stapled his own ribs trying to look alive on the feet. The Jackson rib-break was indeed early, but it became the pivot, not the excuse—Ilia absorbed Jackson’s volume when it mattered (hello, first two dull-as-dishwater rounds where Topuria boxed with surgical gloves) and then flipped the script once Jackson’s engine flatlined. So NickFaithful’s “highlight reel” quip lands about as flat as a Conor McGregor taunt: this wasn’t a magician pulling rabbits, it was a technician dismantling a corpse. Caveat? Yeah, sure—Ilia’s still only twenty-six and we’ve seen flash-in-pan phenoms like Sean O’Malley cling to the limelight without ever staring down a Volkanovski twice. But the difference here is simple: O’Malley’s resume has more shiny stamps than scars, whereas Ilia’s got the Makhachev trilogy on the ledger and a Jackson that walked into the cage already bleeding internally. It’s not rocket science—it’s ring rust and time zones—and right now Topuria owns both less than anyone else at 145.

You ever watch a bloke get left for dead, then still come back swinging? That’s Ilia in a nutshell—Jackson wasn’t just “half-alive” before the cage touched down, he was a medical case by the time the referee even thought about waving it off. And yet Topuria still went and made the bloke *gas* in the pocket while the doctor couldn’t decide if Jackson’s lungs were still operational. What’s hype when you’re the only man in that cage whose breath actually sounds like he’s not auditioning for last rites? 😏

Ilia against half-alive Jackson, that’s a masterclass? Man got his rib cracked blocking kicks in weight-cut hell, stumbled into the cage already wheezing through a busted lung—then we call it dominance when Topuria drops him? 🤬 Topuria picked his spots against a dude who could barely stand, not against a real test. And Volkanovski? Dude got KO’ed by Conor McGregor two fights back—now Ilia walks over him because the Aussie’s a “shadow”? Makhachev lost the belt to Islam on pure wrestling, Jackson? Dude’s only dangerous when he gets early finishes off injured cans. Where’s the elite resume here—fighting prime Usman, Gaethje, or Poirier through deep wars? Heart says Topuria’s golden all day… but ring rust catches up when you only scrap with tired machines. Bring me a VOLKANOVSKI II or a GAETHJE II or stop acting like 5 elite wins is some unbeatable streak already.

Right, so the noise from the other side never stops—it’s like watching the same debate on loop: Topuria hasn’t faced “prime” Usman or Gaethje, therefore the elite label is just synthetic hype painted by a room of hopefuls who’ll cheer a man off the canvas if he happens to glance his way. I could be wrong, but Jackson being half-alive before the cage even shut behind them doesn’t suddenly erase the fact that Ilia sat in that pocket for twenty minutes chipping away at a fighter whose own corner emptied the tank halfway through Round 2. You want to dismiss it as “breathing exercises,” fine—then explain why Jackson’s cardio sounded like a lawnmower that ran out of petrol when Topuria started digging for the hooks, not the shin kick. And Volkanovski? The bloke still had wheels when he stepped under Conor, yet now we’re told that loss turned him into window dressing for Ilia’s highlight reel. That’s not an argument; that’s wishful cancellation. On the flip, I’m not sold on the “five elite wins” mantra either—not when the tape reads like a masterclass in suffocation rather than the violent wars you’d expect from fighters who’d just come off five-straight wars against the best in the world. The Makhachev trilogy is impressive, no doubt, but three fights inside a year doesn’t make a resume; it makes a gauntlet. And sure, Ilia’s style turns every war into a clinic, but a clinic doesn’t always translate to the mythic wars older fans still romanticise. Remember, we used to call it “elite” when guys like Bisping and Wonderboy traded leather for three rounds straight and still stood at the end—now we’re celebrating a fighter who never had to go five because his opponent tapped mentally before the final bell. So where does that leave us? Sitting on a paradox: Ilia Topuria looks untouchable, then you blink and wonder where the real fire tests actually live. The Georgians won’t hand him another empty seat unless the UFC lets the division breathe again, and if history’s a guide, the UFC would rather roll the dice on new matchups than revisit old ones. Unless Volkanovski II steps up and suddenly remembers how to breathe after Conor, or Islam puts down the clown college long enough to dust off the wrestling shoes, we’re left chasing phantoms—and Topuria keeps collecting scalps without ever really stretching.