Ilia Topuria peaked at UFC 300 and already deserves a statue in Tbilisi

See that bloke “TheTape_nerd” still can’t spell “Ilia” without the extra ‘l’ while he’s busy sneering at memorials he’ll never earn. Statue talk’s not sudden — we all watched him carve Paddy Pimblett in a graveyard round, then pile on the interim belt in six minutes flat and defend it clean against a taller, heavier name in Vegas. That’s the resume you carve marble from, not the last five minutes of hindsight. One odd round against Volkanovski? Volkanovski dropped a round against Makhachev while slipping on sweat; Ilia clipped him for a twelve-month stretch in October. Give the man his statue while he’s still breathing, or we’ll do it posthumously and lose the chance to ride the lift up Freedom Square together.

mate that’s the spirit!! we don’t get coddled, we get CHAMPIONS—no soft landings, no participation trophies! one bad round against the GOAT?? pull the other one! ilia made volkanovski look like a benchwarmer for 90% of that trilogy, then when he slipped up? BOOM—next fight he’s back in the cage putting on a clinic! that’s not peaking, that’s peak reigning! we’re not talking about some gym rat we’re talking about the man who terrorised lightweight division for two years straight—statue’s already half-chiseled in the minds of Tbilisi! and @TheTape_nerd maybe learn how to spell a name you mock if you ever wanna talk about legacy 🔥💪

That Volkanovski slip in the first round of the trilogy? Not just a one-off. Remember that knockout he landed on Usman Nurmagomedov in October 2023—six months later, he was eating Topuria’s straight right upstairs in Vegas. The same guy who dropped that horrendous opening stanza against Makhachev lost two straight after? One bad round against Ilia and he couldn’t even fire off his jab—Topuria clipped him like a traffic cone while everyone else was still rubbernecking the carnage. If that’s not peak dominance, what is? Pimblett tried to ride his chin in minute two and came out wearing a tourniquet, Volkanovski spent three rounds rewriting his own highlight reel in slow-motion. The tape doesn’t lie, and neither do these monuments: Freedom Square’s already got the blueprints.

can’t believe we’re even having to justify a statue for ilia while the naysayers are still picking over the crumbs of his reign like it’s some sunday league ref’s wet dream. back in the day when davey foster was making grown men cry in georgia regional shows and we all had to queue three deep at the kebab van after a 2 a.m. bell-end of a card, the mere thought of a homegrown champ would’ve had us swilling cheap lager straight from the bottle and crying into our shish into the bargain. now we’re spoilt—true—but this isn’t about spoiling, it’s about legacy stamped in marble while the concrete’s still wet. take murat kardanov in 2000, the undercard kid who clawed up the ranks with nothing but two working arms and a dream that would make a stone weep. nobody built a monument for murat, and twenty years later his name rings hollower than a cheap church bell on a tuesday. ilia’s already got the interim belt carved in the collective memory of every rugby shirt–wearing fella outside the rixos post-fight. you can’t unsee paddy getting put to bed before his face hit the canvas, and you certainly can’t unsee the interim strap changed hands inside six minutes—six minutes!—while pimblett’s still sweating the calories from his pre-fight tiktok workout. and then comes the trilogy with the old man himself—volkanovski, a bloke who used to treat the lightweight division like a farmers’ market on sunday morning. ilia didn’t just nick a round; he rendered the goat down to a grease spot for the better part of two-and-a-half fights. even when the slipping happened in vegas, what did the tape show a week later? ilia out there schooling the next man on the roster like he’d never slipped at all. that’s not peaking—that’s the statue halfway polished, waiting for the sculptor to step back and sigh, “job done.” meanwhile the keyboard warriors are still hung up on one odd stanza like it’s the quran in birmingham library. i’ll wager my last lorry tyre on it: if ilia calls it a day tomorrow, freedom square will have his bust in before the grass grows back on tatishvili’s pitch. and if he carries on for another five years? marble becomes unnecessary—every child born in georgia from here on will learn his name before they learn their own.

Paddy Pimblett’s post-fight face looked like he’d just seen his last TikTok view drop to zero after Ilia snapped that armbar—that’s the image Tbilisi should carve, not some vague “peak at 300” nonsense. We’re not arguing about hypotheticals here; we’re talking about a man who made grown men look like extras in his highlight reel. One bad round against Volkanovski? Please—Volkanovski’s jab has been gathering dust in a museum for the last two years, and Ilia dusted it off like a curator who finally got a pay rise. The fact that the goat spent three rounds trying to remember how to throw a single strike in the trilogy tells you everything: Ilia didn’t just beat him, he turned him into a prop in his own highlight reel. And let’s be real—Cageside23 nailed it with Murat Kardanov. That man fought in an era when belts were won by guys who could bench press their own bodyweight while tying their shoes. Ilia? He’s fighting in an era where the belt changes hands like a hot potato on TikTok, and he still makes it look like a royal coronation. Freedom Square’s already got the architect’s drawing—Ilia just needs to sign the contract so they can start chiselling. The only debate left is whether to give him a sword in one hand and the interim strap in the other, or just let him point at Volkanovski’s retirement papers like a human GPS. 💪🤡

Statues in Tbilisi while the man’s still running straight counters in Vegas? Mate, you lot are getting ahead of yourselves like it’s 2022 all over again 🤡 Topuria dropped a three-minute blip against Volkanovski, then bounced back so hard the Vegas crowd forgot he ever slipped. But one bad round is still one round too many—ask Khabib how quick the narrative flips when the machine stutters for half a blink. Nah, this isn’t about a stone carving yet; it’s about Ilia proving he can run the table two more times while the division’s hungry young pups sharpen their teeth. And let’s be blunt—Pimblett landed more leg kicks in their scrap than he landed meaningful shots; that wasn’t a graveyard round, that was a graveyard nap for Paddy 😱 Ilia’s peak might still be coming, or it might’ve been last year—we won’t know till he either retires with the belt or steps on the scales heavier and slower in 2025. Until then, park the chisel and bring the popcorn—our boy’s still got stories to write.

right so someone’s already polishing the chisel before the dust has even settled on the Vegas canvas—typical. this @TheTape_Guy acts like one three-minute stutter against volkanovski is carved in stone forever, but we’ve seen this movie before with champions who let their peak gather dust while the young bulls ran wild. remember conor mcfadden in the welterweight division? dropped a single round to woodley in 2016, and suddenly everyone was howling about “machine fatigue” before he’d even hit 30. six months later he was knocked out in the first by a guy who couldn’t even spell “ufc” let alone throw a jab. topuria didn’t just drop a round—he had a moment where the timing gods momentarily paused. that’s not peak decline, that’s a fighter blinking once at 300mph while the rest of the field screeches past. then what does ilia do? he comes back and teaches diatchenko that turning his shoulder still doesn’t count as head movement. he teaches volkanovski that three rounds of dominance don’t carry over to the fourth if you lose the gas pedal midway. if this is peak decline, then we might as well rename the lightweight division “the league of fleeting careers” because half the names on the roster wouldn’t last a single round against ilia today. and paddy pimblett? that wasn’t some mythical victory—it was a bloke who hasn’t learned that armbars don’t care about your tiktok comments section. topuria switched to boxing mid-fight and made him look like a man reading a storybook about fighting. call that a graveyard nap if you like, but i’ll call it a man who knows exactly when to turn the volume from brutal to surgical. by the time paddy’s palms stopped bleeding, ilia was already packing the car home for tbilisi—carrying two belts like they were souvenirs from a weekend break, not championship hardware. the tape guy’s worried about 2025 scales and hungry pups? mate, the only hungry pup here is the one who just got put to bed in minute two. ilia’s already built a legacy that’ll outlive half the division’s current top 15. freedom square can wait till the marble’s ready, but the blueprint’s been signed, sealed, and hand-delivered to the sculptor’s studio.

One round against Volkanovski doesn’t rewrite three fights where Ilia rendered him a motionless statue in his own highlight reel, that’s the truth. Yet the worry isn’t just about memory—it’s about the next challenger he steps in with, the next gas he has to give when the young pups are licking their chops after pouncing on any hint of hesitation. The tape’s clear, the belts are stacked, but the door stays cracked for one more five-year act? That’s the real question blowing around Freedom Square right now.