Ilia Topuria says his UFC debut started with covid, a wrecked body, and a weight cut that sounded flat-out miserable.
Before he became a star and before the talk around his UFC White House fight with Justin Gaethje took over headlines, Topuria says he got the call to fight in the UFC while he was sick in bed and badly overweight. The short-notice debut came against Youssef Zalal on Fight Island in October 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic.
Speaking with Adam Catterall for One on One MMA, Topuria said:
“I didn’t want to get that call, I was sick with covid, I remember I was in my bed and I wasn’t even able to walk for two weeks, finally I said ‘I’m going to go outside and run for ten minutes’.”
That was only the start of the mess. Topuria said:
“I did 15 minutes and I had to come back, I sat in my house and my phone started to ring, I picked up the phone and they were like ‘do you want to fight in the UFC in eight days?’ I’m like ‘how am I going to make that happen?’”
Then came the number that makes the whole story feel insane. Topuria said:
“I had to lose 12kg [just over 26lb] in eight days, so many things I had to do, but whatever. I said yes, I didn’t know how I was going to make it happen but let’s do it.”
Ilia Topuria turned that brutal first UFC call into the start of his rise
Topuria ended up beating Zalal by decision that night, and the win became the first UFC step in the run that changed his career. He later knocked out Alexander Volkanovski to win the featherweight title, stopped Max Holloway at UFC 308, and in his most recent fight knocked out Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 to win the vacant lightweight belt.
That debut matters even more now because Topuria is no longer just a prospect from that Fight Island stretch. He is one of the biggest names in the sport and is already tied to bigger-picture matchmaking stories, including the Justin Gaethje matchup he previously discussed and the wider noise around the White House card.
What stands out here is how ugly the starting point was. This was not a smooth camp or some perfect debut setup. A lot of fighters would have passed on that call. He took it anyway, and that gamble ended up changing everything.
