Spaniard of Georgian descent Ilia Topuria brutally knocked out Brazilian Charles Oliveira and won the vacant lightweight title at the UFC 317 tournament in Las Vegas.
In doing so, he became only the tenth two-time champion in UFC history, extending his undefeated streak to 17 victories.
Topuria knocks out Oliveira at UFC 317
The fight lasted just over two minutes. The 27-year-old finished the fight with a brutal combination of straight rights and left hooks, knocking Oliveira out.
Now watching
“I represent a new era of mixed martial arts. This is the next level of the game,” Topuria said.
In April, Topuria relinquished his featherweight title to move up to lightweight.
The UFC lightweight championship belt became vacant after Russian Islam Makhachev moved up to welterweight.
Oliveira previously held the UFC featherweight title from May 2021 to May 2022.
He was then stripped of his belt because he missed weight for his second title defense. It was the first time in UFC history that a reigning champion lost his title due to being underweight.
Topuria may make his first defense of his lightweight belt against Paddy Pimlette, with whom Topuria had a conflict over the Briton's ridicule of the 2008 Russian-Georgian war.
Topuria reacted sharply to this, noting that when the war began, he lived in Georgia, noting that it was a brutal war.
