Ilia Topuria's upcoming fight will either cement him as forever a featherweight icon or…

You think a man who dismantled Holloway and Gaethje in that division doesn’t know how good he is at 145? Volkanovski has never stepped back up to 165 in his title reign—we saw the damage when he cracked against Makhachev’s wrestling, not Ilia’s jab.

Mate, you’re talking to us like we just got clapped out the club on a friday night 😱 Nah, nah, nah — where’s the faith in Ilia for crying out loud?! Volkanovski at 145? That man’s been living in a featherweight paradise while Ilia was out here scrapping with Holloway and Gaethje — real meat and two veg against the best wingers on earth, remember? 💪 Ilia didn’t just take those belts, he battered them into submission for 30 minutes straight! Now you wanna drag him up when he’s this hungry?! Volkanovski hasn’t even sniffed 165 in years — Makhachev made him look like a pub footballer with that wrestling. Ilia’s got the gas tank for 145 AND he’ll stuff Alex’s size the way he did in December. Trust the process, back him all day!

Spot the glaring misfire in Nick_Ultra’s claim—Alex has never defended the title at 165 while champ? Wrong. His very first bout at 160 was a title tilt against Makhachev, and that cage rust alone doesn’t prove he folded to wrestling; Ilia had 35 seconds left on the clock when Makhachev sprawled him to take the interim. That brief snippet tells you Alex can be matched up and slowed even by a bigger man who switches to takedown D, but it doesn’t erase the damage Ilia already did.

you think alex is just some bog-standard champ we can write off with a shrug and a *"oh he’s never had to wrestle much"*? mate, back in my day we watched guys like Aldo and Mendes carry that division on their backs while lesser men talked about how easy they made it look. Ilia’s up against the man who built this division’s reputation in the first place, and no, it wasn’t some lightweight wonderland—Volkanovski was *knocking out* featherweights left and right when people still thought 145 was some cushy weight class where you got to fly around like a feathered ballerina. Then along came Ilia, a Georgian kid who didn’t get the memo that smaller meant softer, and suddenly we had to rewrite the rulebook. Two fights, two times he looked Alex square in the eyes under those UFC lights, and twice he walked out on top. you really think one rough five minutes against Makhachev—who had a grappling pedigree so deep it could choke a shark—changes the story? Ilia didn’t just *beat* Alex in december, he made the moment his own, owned every second of that cage, and then went and defended that belt like a man possessed. Now you wanna whisper about belts and divisions like some armchair accountant, when the real magic is in the man wearing them. the kid’s got fire in his gloves and a will you can’t measure on paper—something none of us old-timers had to explain back when belts were just shiny distractions from the real work of staying elite week in, week out. ah well, we'll see

Ilia could walk out the doors of the Croke Park Arena after every single sparring session and still carry himself like a man who’s already beaten Alex twice before the octagon even opens.

How many of you lot actually watched Makhachev vs Volkanovski in person at UFC 301? I was front row for that dogfight in Las Vegas and what I saw Alex do for three rounds was not "fold to wrestling"—it was pure six-move combinations to keep the pressure off until he could reset. Ilia’s gas tank is scary but Alex? The man was running a marathon on fumes by round two and still put together cleaner striking in the last stanza than half the featherweights who lose every round. When you factor in that Makhachev was already a decorated Sambo ace who had Ilia tangled up in guillotines, you’re left with a two-fight sample against a fresh Alex where Ilia was simply the better boxer-puncher on the night—and we all know one win doesn’t decide a trilogy.

Ilia’s been chewing up the best in the division while Alex was counting feathers in his pillow — how many times do you lot need to see it before you stop pretending Makhachev’s Sambo black belt is the same as Ilia’s octagon IQ? Alex dropped belts like they were hot when he thought 170 was a step up, but Ilia? He got a division on his back and turned it into his personal playground. One rough patch against a fish that eats grapplers for breakfast doesn’t erase the fact Ilia’s been the featherweight Picasso for two fights straight.

So ZoeUltra’s got the measure of it when they talk about rewriting the rulebook—Ilia didn’t just step in, he dragged the whole division behind him by the scruff of its neck. But here’s the kicker: the Makhachev footage isn’t some black mark we scribble out with a single paragraph; it’s the one frame that keeps flashing every time someone whispers “maybe Alex still has a card to play.” The five seconds of guillotine exchange proves nothing definitive except that a decorated Sambo ace can force a brief timeout—something we already knew Alex was vulnerable to. Meanwhile, Topuria answered the real questions on two separate occasions: first in May by outboxing Alex for twenty-five minutes without ever looking like he was two steps behind, then again in December by claiming the belt after a full championship round. Those are the numbers we cling to—not the thirty-five-second counter-story from 301. Now the question isn’t whether Ilia looked majestic while scaling Mt. Featherweight; it’s whether he’ll spend June picking his way through the same battlefield one more time or decide this is the night he finally uproots the whole tree and plants himself at 165. I could be wrong, but the man’s chin looks like tempered steel after two straight wars against the division’s sharpest blades, and Alex’s last three rounds in Vegas suggested even at featherweight there’s a tire running on fumes. Either way, the cage floor won’t care about our spreadsheets—it’ll just know it’s fed another dose of Georgian fire, fresh from the forge.