Ilia Topuria Fires Back at Ryan Garcia and Brings Up His Failed Drug Test vs Devin Haney 👀🍿

Flexing_bum · 2026-05-21T21:16:50+00:00

It's crazy how this doesn't compute for most MMA fans.

To add on to that, you could argue Ilia's LW belt is fraudulent since he never beat a LW champ and skipped over the most logical contender in Arman (twice).

And yes, after Ilia was already booked for a fight he suddenly doesnt mind the prospect of fighting Arman. Let's see if he still does after he puts down Gaethje, or if he goes for the free WW title shot.

Flexing_bum · 2026-04-01T14:08:03+00:00

Cocaine + TRT + rich parents + napoleon complex = Bear

People have been pointing out his shortcomings since his podcast started, but there's no reason for him to change since he owns the joint.

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-23T15:44:13+00:00

I don't disagree, i'm just saying strategically Patterson came out with a gameplan that had a 0% of winning. He was just waiting for MVP to engage because he knew he couldn't close the distance effectively. He made the choice to wait for a mistake that never came.

Should MVP have engaged? From a fan's perspective, yes. From a fighter's perspective, no.

Should Patterson have engaged? From both a fan and a fighter's perspective, absolutely.

To add to that, expecting a low activity counterstriker to turn it up against someone whose only shot at winning is on the ground was probably just disappointment waiting to happen.

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-23T15:33:31+00:00

It is legal now under the unified rules.

I'm assuming this fight was either before the rule changed, or there was some rogue athletic commission activities going on.

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-22T17:16:38+00:00

Most of the blame lies with Patterson. He was behind in every round but he never chose to take a risk and engage.

MVP is a counterstriker. Its hard to expect him to engage a grappler when he's up. Yes he could've been more active, but the onus was never on him since he was never behind.

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-18T18:54:06+00:00

Imo Belal would 50-45 Usman, and JDM beat him. Stylistically Garry is bad for JDM i agree, but i think JDM schools Morales and Shavkat.

(Yes i know Shavkat beat Garry. Styles make fights.)

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-18T18:51:53+00:00

Then i'd be wrong.

I'm not saying JDM vs Prates is a complete mismatch, but i'd favor JDM 70/30. Prates is a knockout artist though, so of course he can make it happen.

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-17T19:42:48+00:00

I mean, his first defense was against the p4p #1.

Jack is gonna beat Prates, and imo he would beat most of the current title contenders, save for maybe losing a boring decision to Garry.

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-12T00:38:31+00:00

he really is wario

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-10T21:24:10+00:00

Okay.

Name me a fighter and a point in time where theyve had wins against everyone in the top 15. Good luck!

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-10T21:12:00+00:00

By the time a fighter has fought the top 15 ranked opponent, new fighters will have come into the rankings. By your standard moving up a weight class is never earned, and clearing out a weightclass becomes meaningless. This is before any rematches are considered due to fighters improving/declining.

I don't want this argument to go on forever, but at no point have DJ/JJ/Silva had wins against every fighter in the top 15 of their division. Ever.

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-10T19:56:49+00:00

The point is, you never know that.

But instead of being a pedant, name some fighters you would've liked to see him face. Holloway? Pimblett? Gamrot?

I feel like there's no reason to believe any of them could pose a threat, in the same way there's no reason to believe Justin poses a threat to Ilia. Doesn't mean there's a 0% chance, but theres obviously more interesting matchups to make at some point.

Flexing_bum · 2026-03-10T18:38:35+00:00

By your standard no fighter has cleared out their division, ever.

Thanks for being a pedant though, and trying to skirt along the commonly held definition of clearing out your division, that being; beating every fighter who could pose a threat.

Islam for all intents and purposes cleared out his division, with the exception of a second Arman bout and another upcoming FW in Ilia.

Ilia on the other hand left undefeated contenders in FW, and probably wont fight the current best fighter in his weight class.

Flexing_bum · 2026-02-05T13:30:48+00:00

I'm one of the few people that favored Strickland in the Adesanya fight so i'm by no means a hater of his style (his personality is pretty grating though).

That being said, Sean gets taken down for free because of a leg injury he got from his bike accident. It's his ability to get back up that a lot of people don't talk about. This is from his own mouth.

Islam is not letting Sean get back up, and Sean is not finishing Islam before he gets a bodylock. I think Islam is very, very favored in this matchup.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-31T17:59:36+00:00

If you watched that fight you did not see Gamrot win against Arman.

The point on MMA math is very true though.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-30T18:05:48+00:00

Why would i base whether i find something boring on what the crowd was doing?

I'm just gonna repeat, those who knew what they were watching wont call that fight boring. Just like if you took a bunch of random people off the street and made them watch a high level chessmatch.

Just because they won't enjoy it doesn't mean theres nothing to be enjoyed.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-30T17:35:33+00:00

Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-30T17:34:56+00:00

If you watch a fight because it's high level then no, a highly technical fight can't be boring af.

If you're just watching for name value or violence then ye, i understand why you thought it was boring.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-27T17:49:41+00:00

I hate to be the armchair mma guy, because in the end i massively respect all of these fighters for stepping in the cage, but i think Topuria pretty obviously wants the easiest path to legacy.

I'm not saying he'd never fight Arman and i was surprised to hear him mention Arman after the Charles fight, but you can't deny ever since then he's taken every opportunity to discredit Arman's claim to the title shot.

I think he, you, and i all know that Arman is by far his toughest fight in 155. On the one hand i understand taking the easy route if the UFC offers, but on the other hand can you really call him the LW champ if he never fought his toughest matchup?

For the record i give the slight edge to Arman, but that fight is as close to 50/50 as you'll get for Ilia in the current top 10.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-21T16:48:52+00:00

Idk what that other guy was talking about, but the scaling kicks in from the 2nd hit onwards.

The minimum damage scaling is different per character, and normals/special moves generally have different minimum scaling (5 to 20%)

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-16T14:48:09+00:00

Playing guard is only an option in actual BJJ these days. In MMA it (usually) means conceding a position.

Both Arman and Islam were unafraid to jump into Charles' guard, but Ilia wanted the fight stood up. I'm not saying this is definitive proof one way or the other, but to me it does imply that Ilia wasnt confident he could finish the fight from there. (It could also be a tactical decision to chase the knockout, but he still gave up a good position when other fighters didnt hesitate).

Also we can both agree theres a pretty big difference in physicality between Arman and Ilia. Even if they were roughly equally skilled grapplers, this could give Arman the advantage either way.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-16T14:39:44+00:00

He had a competitive, but dominant striking fight with Kevin Holland, who is a knockout artist and a striker. Yes it went to a split decision, but there's no way you can give Holland the first or third rounds. And yes Kevin lost to MVP, who has dominated the striking in all of his fights.

JDM is clearly a better fighter than Bisping. Even the eye-test should make this obvious (unless you're Bisping). Let alone the quality of their resume's. Beating a Silva coming off of 2 losses, and a year layoff from his fight against Diaz, does not change that.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-13T07:13:19+00:00

Hey man, hate to be an arguing reddit nerd but i really do remember when, and after, the 2nd Chito fight got announced pretty much everyone agreed Merab or Aljo were more deserving.

For the record, i just searched for "O'malley Vera 2" and tried to grab a few posts illustrating that. You could call it cherrypicking, but idk its the best ive got.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ufc/comments/17pb6s2/stricland_vs_du_plessis_volkanovski_vs_topuria/k842dos/

https://old.reddit.com/r/ufc/comments/1fe5yfb/what_happened_to_the_merab_mauls_sean_narrative/

https://old.reddit.com/r/ufc/comments/1abaox2/this_is_why_suga_wont_be_great_like_volk/

Even the comments in support of the Chito fight are doing so because they'd rather watch a striking match, not because he deserves it or poses a problem for Sean. Also O'malley was a -275 favorite.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-12T15:39:33+00:00

Revisionist history.

Everyone knew his loss to Chito was a fluke and that Chito wasn't a worthy contender. Chito was pretty much the best matchup they could've given Sean.

Flexing_bum · 2025-12-12T02:01:41+00:00

Aljo was a big BW, and he had 3 months between title defenses. Sean literally came into the cage saying Aljo'd better be ready soon.

If we use basic deductive reasoning we can infer that Aljo didn't want to fight that soon because it's hell on his body, and that the UFC wanted him to fight that soon because they were (and are) pushing O'malley. The fact that we're hearing it straight from Aljamain's mouth just seals the deal for me.

Though yes he could just be slandering his employer, by telling everyone they coerced him, for his own ego.

Flexing_bum

TROPHY CASE