You know why I’m proud of Ilia Topuria? I know that after the third round, continuing the fight was physically impossible for him, yet in the fourth round he left his heart and soul in the Octagon. He gave everything he had until the very end and sacrificed the greatest asset a person has - their health, during those final five minutes. No belt and no title can ever give you that. You either have that in you, or you don’t.
We all have bad days. After getting out of bed, we’ve probably all thought that everything would go exactly as planned, only to find that by the end of the day everything had gone terribly wrong. Some of us face those days inside four office walls, while others have to overcome them inside the Octagon, in front of a million cameras and a billion eyes watching.
No one knows what kind of mental battle Ilia went through over the past year or how he even made it all the way to the White House. Only he knows that. Everyone is wise when judging someone else’s war. We all have bad days. What matters is how we get back up and how we keep moving forward.
I truly believe that something big, something on a much greater scale, is starting now and no one is ready for it.
Those who take pleasure in someone else’s defeat will never truly enjoy their own victories and the vultures know best when to attack a wounded lion and circle around it.
You are a son of Georgia to be proud of and you always will be, Ilia. You are the one who gave us our first taste of championship glory and then spoiled us twice over. You set the standard so high that anything below it simply no longer surprises us.
Pipo will be back.