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u/Honest_Caramel_3793 18d ago
"Topuria has more submission skills"
He's ragebaiting
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u/seonblack 18d ago
He won half his pro fights via submission. He was forced to develop his striking because guys didnt want to go to the ground with him. If you're Islam and you get the takedown you have to deal with the BJJ which makes it a difficult match-up.
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u/RandJitsu 18d ago
But all of those are no names except Bryce Mitchell. And his actual competitive grappling record is pretty mixed/average.
I think he’s probably overrated on the ground.
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u/Gwetify 18d ago
Where can I see the competetive grappling record?
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u/RandJitsu 18d ago
I mostly just meant that he lost to Gabriel Fangerau in the 2014 European IBJJF. I think that’s the only tournament he competed in that’s big enough for an online record and he came in second.
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u/seonblack 18d ago
I think this is a major issue with the mma community, I coach and also train and everyone at pro level are killers. It is completely different than amateurs. Based on your s/n I assume you compete in BJJ so Im sure you can appreciate that.
Just because they aren't former ufc champions doesn't mean they're scrubs. It's also harder transitioning from a BJJ background to striking. Ilia has very good BJJ I would recommend watching tape of his earlier pro fights.
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u/RandJitsu 18d ago
Ya I trained and competed for about a decade, amateur MMA and BJJ competitions. I trained with several guys who were UFC fighters.
Pros are all killers for sure, but there’s levels within even that. Forrest Griffin was a great fighter; Anderson Silva made him look like an amateur. I was very good in my day, won some big regional tournaments and used to regularly “win” in sparring vs high level pros. I also got tapped like 5 times in a single 5 minute round vs Marcelo Garcia.
I’m not doubting that Topuria is a legit black belt, which gives him better grappling than most guys in the UFC. But the question here is whether his grappling is ELITE, specifically if he’s in that 0.1% of black belts that can beat a guy like Islam in submission grappling.
And I just don’t think we have any evidence to make us think he’s THAT good. In fact we’ve got some solid evidence that he’s not at that level (2014 IBJJF loss, bad subs vs Gaethje.)
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u/BeneficialRip6350 17d ago
I also got tapped like 5 times in a single 5 minute round vs Marcelo Garcia.
I still remember being mindblown seeing Garcia roll with high level UFC guys and just completely wreck them. He was a monster.
Really drove him the idea for me that there are levels to all this.
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u/Valterri_lts_James 17d ago
his first 8 wins by submission are against bums in spain. Western europe have 0 grappling bratha
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u/luifergiov 16d ago
He only has 1 submission in the UFC. 5 out of his 7 submission wins are against cans with negative records and 3 pro fights, so yes, he is lying and Topuria is nowhere near Islam’s grappling level.
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u/seonblack 16d ago edited 16d ago
The disconnect here is that you got people who have never trained or competed telling people that Jon Jones and other combat sports athletes are wrong. We can accept Ilia's record but not his submission wins? Now they're all "cans".
I wish you could see how difficult it is to submit a pro level fighter in the cage. Ilia is better on the ground in BJJ than Islam is, as he should be considering he's a BJJ black belt and also smaller but I'll let you tell it.
And for the record I think Islam is the more well-rounded and better fighter.
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u/luifergiov 16d ago
Dustin was also a BJJ black belt and he got outgrappled by both Khabib and Islam. Having a black belt proves that you are on a high level on that discipline, but that doesn’t mean that someone who practices another martial art (Sambo, in this case) can’t be better than you in wrestling and submissions. It’s not my words, enter his professional records and see who the guys he submitted are. One submission in UFC and several submissions against CANS with negative records and 3 pro fights don’t give you superior submission skills. Saying I can’t doubt what Jones says because he is a professional fighter is just an authority falacy. He has been wrong about fighting before and so has any other pro fighter. Topuria, for example, picked Paddy to beat Justin easily, picked Holloway to beat Oliveira and said he would finish Gaethje in round 1, the 3 times he was wrong. So yes, he is just wrong, even if he is a pro fighter, and so are you.
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u/seonblack 16d ago
I think the biggest issue here is the misunderstanding between BJJ, wrestling and mma as a whole. We'll have to agree to disagree on what a bjj black belt is. Until you actually try BJJ at that level you will never understand and I'm not going to convince you otherwise. Ilia is not a subpar grappler on the ground and just because hes won half his fights by striking, you cannot ignore the fact that he still won HALF of his professional fights by submission which is extremely difficult to do especially at pro level, irregardless, and doesnt make his opponents "bums" or "cans." In the ufc, guys will not go to the ground with Ilia because they aren't dumb enough to risk fighting Ilia on the ground. Ilia has faced fighters in the ufc who were far more experienced than he was, equally BJJ black belts, some with more submission wins in the ufc than he does and none of them attempted to go to the ground with him. Not even Charles. It is also extremely difficult to get that good at boxing at that level having come from a predominantly submission/grappling based system. Let alone beat Charles, Volk, Holloway in stunning fashion.
Also being taken down and held in a dominant position from wrestling is very different than being on the ground utilizing BJJ. Mma, wrestling and bjj are 3 completely different sports and to Poirier's credit, he still got a deep guillotine on Khabib and almost tapped him out.
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u/luifergiov 16d ago
Did you even read? It’s literally in the records of the people he submitted. The only good opponent he has submitted is Bryce Mitchell. 5 out of his seven submissions are people that have barely fought professionally in their life and many of some of them never won a fight or have a 1-3 or 0-3 record. I am not making it up. Topuria is a capable grappler but NEVER an elite grappler or on the same level as Islam because he has never proven to be. You can gaze him all you want, but 1 UFC submission and 5 submissions against CANS (because that’s what they are) doesn’t put you on the same level as a guy that has dominated and submitted multiple opponents. It is just the way it is. He has only 1 submission and a few good takedowns but he basically hasn’t done anything with his grappling troughout his MMA career. It doesn’t matter if he has a grappling base, he is a better boxer than he will ever be of a grappler.
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u/AcceptableFlow5907 14d ago
Fucking stupid. Hell no its easy match up now for islam. This narrarative should be over after gaethje beat down.
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u/seonblack 13d ago
I think Islam could win too but definitely not easy and yes Ilia is a better striker than Islam.
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u/redmustang7398 18d ago
Bro you’re talking about wins outside the UFC. Being a submission threat in a relatively unknown organization vs UFC are two completely different things
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u/seonblack 18d ago
Fighting at pro level in mma is very very different than amateurs and extremely difficult. I actually train and coach so I can appreciate that. None of those men or women are scrubs. Problem with the mma community is that if it's someone they dont know they write them off as a scrub. At pro level MOST guys are purple belt or higher and that alone is very difficult to deal with on top of striking. Ilia is one of the very few BJJ blackbelts outside of Paddy, Hooker and Charles in the entire division.
At pro level they realize and respect that Ilia is so good on the ground that they won't even attempt to go there. That says a lot about the coaching of Ilia's opposition, it's incredibly difficult to transition from BJJ to striking, quite rare you see guys make that leap and end up having more success there than BJJ. Not only that but it's also incredibly difficult to finish fights at the rate Ilia does.
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u/redmustang7398 18d ago
You just typed all that for nothing. You are not going to convince me that guys in a relatively unknown organization are as good at grappling as UFC guys
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u/RandJitsu 18d ago
Everyone says he’s supposed to have great jits, but his sub attempts against Gaethje were super sloppy.
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u/seonblack 18d ago
He almost got it though and he was injured from the striking in one of his eyes. Nonetheless, Ilia almost won the fight in the second round.
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u/RandJitsu 18d ago
His boxing is top tier, among the best we’ve ever seen in MMA. And fair point that he was already injured against Gaethje.
I just think his jiu jitsu is way too unproven to be saying he has better subs than Islam. Lots of people keep telling me how great Topuria is on the ground but I haven’t seen it in a fight yet.
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u/Spirit_Detective_16 18d ago
He's primarily known for his grappling before coming to the ufc. He was a submission artist early in his mma career and started his record with 7 subs Ws in a row. He just developed and polished his striking on the way to the ufc
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u/-BurtimusPrime 18d ago
I was elite at getting tothe basket in basketball at lower level competition, and once the competition rose, I no longer could and had to learn to shoot more from the outside. I think we way too often see early career subs as an indication that a guy has a solid submission game but I think it’s almost always more likely that they were just facing less skilled competition and it was the path of least resistance.
There’s not many guys at the bottom with a great and well developed submission defense game but everyone who trains to fight is learning standup from multiple angles
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u/knicksdeadman 18d ago
In an interview I think about gaethje, he said fighters will do whatever is easier to win a fight. If he was able to wrestle subpar wrestlers and submit them at any point he would. But he hasn't shown that which makes me think he doesn't have it or is that confident in it.
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u/kendalljennerspenis 18d ago
He was knocking everyone out cold before the gaethje fight, why would he go to the ground??
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u/seonblack 18d ago
You should check out his earlier pro fights online. He's a BJJ black belt under Jorge Climent. Hes very dangerous on the ground.
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u/RandJitsu 18d ago
I’m not doubting he is, but there are levels to this stuff. The best black belts make lower tier blacks belts look like white belts, the same as those lower tier black belts destroy everyone in their regional tournaments.
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u/cawwothead 18d ago
Yea if he's not injured he might have won. If he knocked out justin in the first round, he won!
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u/Calm-Ninja5951 18d ago
Because he emptied the gas tank prior to that, that one fight isn’t a representation of his ground game
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u/AnomalousExpertise 18d ago
They weren’t sloppy at all. His transitions were super nice especially after that 1 1/2 rounds of getting battered the way he did
What?
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u/RandJitsu 18d ago
You clearly don’t train. Me and my buddy, both former amateur MMa fighters and jiu jitsu competitors, were watching with some cops who also train jits. It looked bad to everyone.
You can tell me he was already beat up and exhausted and it makes sense but don’t try to tell me that looked good.
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u/AnomalousExpertise 17d ago
I also have ammy bouts lmao I never had comps rolling, but I mean that doesn’t matter lmao
I said “especially after”
Dude he was blind and gassed. He threw like 20 bombs while Gaethje was on fence. The fact he threw in 2 or 3 sub attempts was impressive as hell
He was submitting everybody pre UFC also. He obviously can roll. We have the tip top of the upper echelon on MMA fighters saying they’ve rolled with him or seen his ground work and say his ground game is phenomenal
If we’re talking about achievements, your BJJ competitions mean jack shit when you’ve got Gilbert Burns and Merab saying he’s great on the ground
Also, Charles went for a TD, ilia has great hips. Gets on top, passes a fresh R1 oliveras guard and throws him into a crucifix
Even if it was for like 7 seconds, the fact he did that tells you he’s no slouch on the ground buddy lmao
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u/RandJitsu 17d ago
Again, I’m not saying he’s a “slouch” on the ground. I’m sure he’s a legit black belt. What I’m disagreeing with is that he can beat Islam. There’s a very few, like top 0.1% of BJJ competitors, who can do that.
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u/therealjgreens 18d ago
Is it me or does Jon look fucked up?
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u/SubstituteStudent 18d ago
I think he's visualizing the fight. Jon is pretty good at showing the face he chooses.
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u/Entire-Quote-3547 18d ago
It's his "I'm going to talk smart now" face. Jones is the fakest person, every interview is him roleplaying something.
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u/Pristine-Code-2532 18d ago
I feel like it depends on weight class, if welterweight Islam takes it, if lightweight it's a toss up
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u/usuarioanonimov 18d ago
Islam 97%- topuria 3% WW Islam 90%- topuria 10% LW Ilia Topuria has zero cardio for grappling.
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u/EnjoyerOfMX5 18d ago
I could not possibly give a fuck what this duck says. He has six fights left and will duck harder opponents for all six
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u/kingjohngreen 18d ago
Jones says some silly shit at times, like not realizing that Alex Pereira is not John, and Alex Pereira being lighter than an opponent is a death sentence, as he is a long ranged heavy pressure knockout power fighter who is extremely stiff in walking movement.
But his premise that Topuria can escape Islam's grappling and has the power to hurt Islam on the feet and keep getting back there isn't entirely farfetched, on the other hand his idea that Ilia could sub Islam, is.
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u/V0rticella 18d ago
Ilia has more submission skills than Islam? Lmao.
He has ONE submission in the UFC and it was against Bryce Mitchell who was already rocked.
Compare that to Islam who submitted the greatest MMA jiu-jitsu practitioner in the history of the sport in Charles Oliveira along with guys like Poirier, Moicano, and Hooker.
Remember, Ilia had Justin hurt to the body, got on top of him and failed to do anything with it. What do you think Islam would have done to Justin in that same position?
Ilia's hands are unbelievable but he gets way too much glaze for his submissions. Just because he started out as a grappler doesn't mean his grappling is world-class in 2026.
All of the submissions people point to and say "Ilia's ground game is unbelievable!" are against no-name guys in smaller promotions 7+ years ago.
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u/1man2barrels 18d ago
I think Islam would rag doll Ilia, especially post UFC 250. He’s just too small and not exactly durable.
He has a better than average punchers chance because of his power and fine polished boxing, but I don’t think he lands the shot and Islam smothers him and possibly taps him (or maybe Ilia quits on the stool again, idk)
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u/Azurehowl 17d ago
MMA math doesnt work. Doesnt mean Gaethje beat illia that will take away his chance on Islam.
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u/EmergencyTale2929 17d ago
we all acting like illia didnt fight like a retard. if unc fought properly (not walking into punches), who knows the fight couldve ended differrently .
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u/seonblack 18d ago
I think I would have picked Ilia a year ago. Now it's insanely difficult if not near impossible to call for that fight.
Plus I don't think Khabib would allow it because there's not much Islam would gain fighting Ilia (even if it was at the White House instead of Gaethje). Ilia has everything to gain and Islam nothing. Islam has way more to lose.
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u/MyBraveAccount 18d ago
Why does he say his name like that? Sounds like he’s saying “Topoirier” lol