Featherweight Hall Of Fame
The UFC’s featherweight division has always been one of it’s most competitive weight classes and has produced a litany of legendary champions ever since it’s addition to the promotion back in 2011.
Jose Aldo became the inaugural kingpin of the division when the UFC absorbed the WEC and he held the belt until he was unceremoniously usurped by Conor McGregor in just 13 seconds four-and-a-half years later.
Aldo briefly reclaimed the vacant belt before losing it to Max Holloway in 2017, who himself enjoyed an impressive run at the top of the mountain before suffering successive defeats at the hands of Alexander Volkanovski.
The El Matador Era
Ilia Topuria, the man who toppled Volkanovski in February of this year, is currently basking in the glory of his first successful defence of the belt last weekend. His stunning main event knockout win over Holloway at UFC 308 means the 27-year-old has now finished two of the greatest champions in the UFC’s history in successive fights.
UFC color commentator Laura Sanko believes that “El Matador” brings something to the table that we have never seen before.
“He’s so good that he becomes difficult to analyse” Sanko said this week during an appearance on The Sheehan Show, “which is really fun (and a big challenge) when your job is to present possibilities of fight outcomes…if this happens, this is probably gonna happen (etc.)”
“Or (when) you want to paint pictures, (when) you want to paint scenarios for the audience to get on board with. It’s really hard to do with him because he is so complete and that dreaded phrase ‘well-rounded’ is just not the sexiest thing to say about somebody, but the fact is that that is exactly what he is.”
Sanko highlighted the superhuman power that Topuria possesses as something that sets him apart from his featherweight predecessors.
“But he’s not just well rounded” she said. “He is dangerous in every respect. It’s one thing to be capable and good at everything at the same time, it’s another thing to be dangerous everywhere. I used to say these very same things (and still would say them, I don’t mean to say it in the past tense)…I used to say these same things about Alex Volkanovski, but now we have Alex Volkanovski with an insane amount of power.
“That was the only thing that Alex never really showed us a ton of was, you know, crushing, one punch type of knockout power,” she continued.” Slick (fight) management skills, obviously didn’t rely on his grappling too much be we knew he was a good grappler, well-rounded.”
“Ilia is like another level beyond that and that’s crazy to say because Alex Volkanovski’s one of the best featherweight champions this sport has ever seen. But for Ilia to knock out Alex and then to take out Max in concurrent fights? That’s insane”.
Who’s Next?
With Topuria having conclusively finished two former champions in the space of just a few months, the question now turns to who he should face next.
Both Topuria and Volkanovski looked to be in agreement in the Octagon after last week’s main event that they will run things back, and given the state of flux in the featherweight rankings at the moment it’s difficult to argue against that happening.
Outside of Volkanovski and Holloway in the rankings sit promising prospects like Diego Lopes and Movsar Evloev, although it’s difficult to make case for either having done enough just yet to earn a shot at the champion. Evloev is scheduled to face former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling in December and a conclusive victory for either fighter may catapult them into the title conversation.
Other names inside the top ten such as Yair Rodriguez, Arnold Allen and Brian Ortega have struggled for form of late and may find themselves moving down the rankings over the next six months, rather than toward Topuria.
Whoever next in line, it’s difficult to get away from the sense that we are witnessing yet another era of greatness in one of the UFC’s greatest divisions.
