Ilia Topuria, the Spanish phenomenon in the UFC: "My life is an eternal training"

"My parents came to Spain by chance. They knew some relatives in Alicante and they stayed. They were always hard workers, my father at the construction site and my mother taking care of children, earning an honest living, and I also started fighting by chance. In Georgia I practiced Greco-Roman wrestling and one day here in Spain my mother saw a man on the bus who had cauliflower ears, something you get when you get hit, she asked him where he trained and the next day he took me to the gym brother and me. He started with jiu jitsu and I started with mixed martial arts."

That's a good start for a biography.

There the story of

.

Ilia Topuria, write down her name.

To those over 30 years old, it probably won't sound familiar;

the minors know him very well.

He is the best Spanish fighter in the

, the largest martial arts competition on the planet, the one that attracts the most followers, especially young people.

His brevity, his aggressiveness and the character of his stars - from

to

to

- caused a boom a decade ago that continues today.

Despite the fact that in terms of viewers he is still far from boxing, on YouTube and social networks he moves masses, hence the popularity of Topuria.

They explain in their environment that if you walk through Madrid there are kids at the door of your hotel, that the requests for photos on the street are constant.

And he wears it with pleasure.

"I'm glad that, finally, my work is recognized, that there are those who admire me. I have worked for many years and now all this is a great motivation to continue," says Topuria with a date in mind: October 29.

That day, at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, he will face

, a veteran who fought against Nurmagomedov, for what should be his final leap to stardom.

He would enter the Top 10 of the UFC featherweight, he would launch his project of organizing a mixed martial arts evening in Spain -the first elite- and...

Where is the top? If nothing weird happens next year I have to fight for the belt.

I prepare for that to happen, for any rival.

The confidence I have doesn't come from thin air, I'm not motivated: it's all because of the work I do.

My life is an eternal training.

Every day I get up, I go to the gym and I deliver.

I try to improve in everything, in my physical form, in my techniques, in the analysis of my rival...

But let's go back to the beginning.

Born in Halle, Germany, to a Georgian family, at the age of 15 Ilia arrived with her brother

at the Climent Club in Alicante and the gates of heaven were opened to her.

Back then, Topuria didn't even speak Spanish, but he perfectly understood everything that was happening in there.

"I didn't know how to speak, nothing, nothing. And the gym helped me a lot. It didn't make me an athlete, it made me a person. I will be eternally grateful to everyone. I made friends, I joined Spain, everything," explains the fighter, who at the beginning already He knew how to handle himself on the ground, due to Greco-Roman wrestling, but that had to be applied with boxing blows, with Muay Thai kicks...

Because mixed martial arts are, more or less, that: anything goes to knock out the opponent.

An eight-sided cage, from three to five five-minute rounds, without gloves or other protections, and to fight.

There are limitations, such as hits to the throat or spine, but the bellicosity is just as undeniable.

Many people see it as too violent a sport.

It is the lack of habit.

Formula 1 or MotoGP are not considered violent sports because we are used to them, but they are still dangerous.

The same thing happens with bullfighting, you need to get used to it.

For people to get used to the UFC we need time, to hold an event in Spain...

Topuria speaks from a training campus that took a lot of time to get to.

Before closing the fight with Barboza, nobody wants to get in front of him because of his history.

In his career he has 12 wins and zero losses, but in his last three fights, all already in the UFC and against international rivals, he has three KOs in the first or second round.

The rise is unstoppable.

And then the weight change will come.

Because the Spaniard fights in featherweight with his 1.70 meters and that requires a drastic diet before each fight.

Actually his dream is to be a double champion, featherweight and lightweight.

But everything step by step, with the confidence that characterizes him.

"I'm safe because I'm prepared. I don't feel nervous because when I get to the arena I've already given 100% in preparation,

. I never have negative thoughts," he concludes.

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