Daniel Cormier thinks Ilia Topuria has done enough for a title shot.
Topuria (14-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) battered former interim title challenger Josh Emmett for five rounds en route to a dominant decision win in this past Saturday’s UFC on ABC 5 headliner at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla.
Topuria said he plans on sitting out until the next title fight between champion Alexander Volkanovski and Yair Rodriguez at UFC 290, and Cormier thinks that’s the right choice after such an impressive performance.
“I’m OK with him going right into a title fight,” Cormier told ESPN. “I think he is that ready. This kid showed conditioning over 25 minutes, he showed an ability to compete everywhere, and he really did just dominate. I think that he matches up relatively well against all of them. The technical fight between him and Yair (Rodriguez) would be crazy, but then also to watch him fight the champion, (Alexander) Volkanovski, with their skill sets – fantastic fights across the board at 145.”
Cormier views Topuria as the future of mixed martial arts, and was especially impressed with his composure in and out of the octagon.
“He’s young. He’s like 25 years old or 26 years old. He hasn’t fought much,” Cormier said. “The only thing that you could even take as a negative was he didn’t do the fighter meetings because he was cutting weight. That’s literally the only misstep. He had to get his weight down, and that’s not really a misstep.
“You can’t judge him harshly in anything that he did over the course of the first main event week that he’s ever had. He’s calm. He’s collected. His demeanor outside of the octagon translates so well inside the octagon. He’s at the high guard, he’s in there, he sets everything up – he wastes nothing. This dude is just – he really is next-level and he is the evolution of mixed martial arts.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ABC 5.
