Ilia Topuria is on an incredible run inside the Octagon, but Joe Rogan thinks there is some important context behind a couple of results.
The lightweight champion has the chance to add another legend to his résumé in the main event of Sunday’s UFC event at the White House.
Before Topuria’s upcoming clash with Justin Gaethje, he knocked out Charles Oliveira last summer to become a two-division champion. In the year prior, the Spaniard also sent both Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway to the same brutal fate.
Some are calling it the greatest three-fight run in history, but Rogan sees a couple of asterisks next to the featherweight triumphs.
Joe Rogan explains why he views Ilia Topuria’s wins over Volkanovski and Holloway differently
Topuria stopped Volkanovski at UFC 298 in Anaheim, then made history by being the first to knock out Holloway eight months later in Abu Dhabi.
Rogan has praised Topuria’s rise through the UFC, but he believes there are circumstances around those two wins that deserve a closer look.
“He’s got three all-time great KOs in a row,” Rogan said on an episode of his JRE MMA Show. “Three in a row is nuts.”
“Yes (there’s asterisks). Charles no, Max Holloway yes, because he cut the weight — but that was his decision,” Rogan said. “And no one should have let Volkanovski take that fight. You got head-kicked four months ago into a coma. There’s no chance you should be taking a fight with the scariest puncher in the division.”
At UFC 308, Holloway moved back down to featherweight just six months after beating Gaethje at lightweight. A few months later, Volkanovski met ‘El Matador’ just four months after suffering an Islam Makhachev knockout via head kick back in October 2023.
The former Fear Factor host still rates Topuria as one of the best and could place him as number one if he defeats Justin Gaethje at Sunday’s event at the White House.
