The hardest day for Ilia Topuria: this is her fight against the scale and weighing
It’s weight cut Thursday. The longest day of cada ‘Fight Week’. And although the team Ilia Topuria (15-0) and the ‘Matador’ have everything under control, as they transmit, There will be hours of suffering and fighting against the scale. The objective is clear: give 65.8 kilos tomorrow starting at 07:00 Spanish time (09:00 United Arab Emirates) to be able to defend the belt in Abu Dhabi. When they both do it (he and Holloway), the fight will be official.
Usually, outside of camp, Ilia Topuria weighs around 82 kilos. If it serves as a reference, for the fight with Volkanovski he cut 16.3 kilos in a progressive loss that began almost three months before. “It was the best weight loss I’ve ever had in my life. It was very bearable. People looked at me and said… ‘where are you going to lose that amount?’. Even I was worried. But Aldo was there to help me.” everything. Last week I lost between 7 and 8 kilos. And the next day, as Aldo himself confirmed to MARCA, Topuria showed up for the fight at 77 kilos, having gained 10 kilos and 200 grams. “A superhero,” he defined.
People looked at me and said… ‘where are you going to lose that amount?’ Even I was worried
The fight with Volkanovski in Anaheim marked a before and after on how to deal with weight cuts in the Topuria team. Gone are the medical problems that stopped his fight in 2022 against Charles Jourdain. Now everything is measured, brought to perfection. There is total control. And the descent, which is not radical by any means, becomes “bearable”, as the ‘Matador’ defined.
Ilia Topuria steps on the scale for the UFC 298 weigh-in.
Aldo, in MARCA, recalled that moment with Enrique Mellado: “We went down to the weigh-in at nine in the morning and I was with him backstage. He started making shadows, dancing, he looked very good, with agility, with a spectacular movement, super well structured. Volkanovski looked at him and I saw his shocked face. I thought, ‘You just won the first fight. Psychologically you just destroyed him.’ That is the Formula 1 that we have here in Spain. “Our Spanish-Georgian Ilia, who has worked wonderfully giving us all the championship belt.”
Volkanovski looked at him and I saw his shocked face. I thought, ‘You just won the first fight. Psychologically you just destroyed it’
A team that is key
Topuria tries to take it in the best possible way and combine the last week of physical preparation with the hundreds of commitments that come with being the UFC champion. This Tuesday, for example, in the middle of the weight cut, he must attend the press conference at the Etihad Arena to see himself face to face with his rival.
But surrounding yourself is also what takes you on the right path. His family, with Gio, his best, at the head; or your team, with Doctor Aldo as the ‘shadow’ of the Hispano-Georgian. “We are lowering the percentage of fat. Assessments are progressively made. Sometimes I do an anthropometry or request that they do a densitometry, which allows me to know their percentage of fat or their muscle mass and we see their evolution compared to other ‘training camps’. ‘”, Doctor Aldo told MARCA. This time, according to that data, everything is going well again. Even, as happened before ‘Volk’, the objective is to go to sleep on Thursday with homework done and on Friday, first thing in the morning, be on the scale.
With him in this process are also his brother Aleksandre, Guram Kutateladze and even Merab Dvalishvili, UFC bantamweight champion and also Georgian. Merab, in fact, uploaded a video last night in which you can see how this weight cut is progressing and how fine the ‘Matador’ is.
Merab Dvalishvili shared Matador’s weight cutting process on his networks
The methods of the Topuria staff
There aren’t many secrets, really. Hard work and methods that have worked before for the Ilia team. Double trimming sessions, organic food, dehydration and sauna. “It plays with the athlete’s hydration. We have loaded water on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… and starting on Thursday there is already a discharge of water. He begins to urinate and begins to lose weight. That along with the sweating that we will do on Thursday evening,” Doctor Aldo tells this newspaper.
It plays with the athlete’s hydration. We have loaded water on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… and starting on Thursday there is already a water discharge
It is the crucial moment, when you have to lose the last ‘excess’ kilos while eating and training according to the schedule of the main fight in Abu Dhabi: getting up around 12:00 noon and going to bed at 5:00 a.m. the morning Nutrition, this week of ‘Fight Week’, goes hand in hand with Glenn Castro and the UFC PI, with full supervision by Aldo.
Ilia Topuria’s physiotherapists visit the MARCA editorial office before UFC 308 to tell us all the secrets of the ‘Matador’.
It should be noted that weight cuts limit the fighter’s sporting life. “The body suffers a lot. It’s quite hard,” Raúl Valdesuso and Fran Ortega, the Topuria physios, tell MARCA.“In fact, it is something that cannot be done many times.” That’s why they fight 2-3 times a year ‘only’. And Ilia, who takes everything to the millimeter and that is why he does not fight on short notice (except for his first fight, the one at the start of the UFC, when he performed a miracle against Zalal coming from having COVID), “is extending his professional career” with these methods .
The body suffers a lot with each weight cut. It’s pretty hard
And then, ‘bounce’
It is 09:01 local time. Ilia Topuria gets off the scale after weighing in. Tap ‘load’. “While he goes up to weigh himself, I am waiting for him with the drink to hydrate him as soon as he finishes. The replacement drink is provided by UFC. A rehydration drink is taken and we time 20 minutes until the next one, then another one follows after another 20 minutes; then drink, now with electrolytes and mineral salts, every 15 minutes,” explains Aldo.
A rehydration drink is taken and we time 20 minutes until the next one, then another one follows after another 20 minutes; then drink, now with electrolytes and mineral salts, every 15 minutes
There comes the ‘rebirth’ of the fighter. “When all that hydration has been done throughout the morning, Ilia goes to urinate and then she begins to eat carbohydrates, which in this case are starchy. It was what we did without during almost the entire training camp, and now it is taking. Each molecule of starch retains 2.7 of water and then fluid retention occurs. We accompany this with the mineral salts and electrolytes that you take with the drink. In this way it replenishes itself, it gains weight little by little and it hydrates itself again,” he added.
The change can be seen at the ceremonial weigh-in in the afternoon, where we will see a much more ‘loose’ and active Topuria. And 24 hours later, the fight… with the ‘Matador’ at full capacity. A more than studied process where absolutely nothing is left to chance.
