Despite using his last two appearances to decimate a pair of the greatest fighters in MMA history, Ilia Topuria is still a helpless victim of rule changes and happenstance. Poised to step up in weight to fight Islam Makhachev for the lightweight crown, in arguably the biggest fight that can be made in MMA right now, Topuria was blindsided by both the UFC and the lightweight champion.
The company that desperately needs another Conor McGregor decided that a fighter must now vacate their belt if they intend to move up—removing any negotiating leverage that might come with tying up two belts. And then Makhachev decided he liked the look of the new welterweight champion more anyway.
And so Makhachev is out as the lightweight champ, and out of the lightweight division. Topuria has dropped his featherweight belt, and is still fighting for the lightweight crown, now vacant, against the great Charles Oliveira.
We have examined elements of Ilia Topuria’s style previously. Ilia Topuria: The V-Step, The Pivot, and the Shoulder Roll was a study on the beautiful boxing and counter punching that Topuria used against Josh Emmett. That was a deep dive on a narrow segment of Topuria’s game. Today I want to touch on some of the other aspects of Topuria’s striking that I haven’t given due attention in a written study, or that have developed relatively recently.
The Frugal Low Kicker
If asked to describe Ilia Topuria in a few sentences, there probably isn’t a fan alive who would mention his kicking game. And yet in studying Topuria’s recent bouts, his kicks are often of great significance to the flow of the fight. Rather than a devastating power kicker, or a man who chops the legs to ribbons with volume, I would describe Topuria’s use of low kicks as “judicious”. He throws few low kicks, but their impact often outweighs the work of more famous kickers, landing much more frequently.
Alexander Volkanovski spent his entire fight with Topuria jabbing and circling to Topuria’s right. This led to a lot of hairy moments where he pulled away a little late and got dinged with the overhand across the top of his jab. But it also allowed Volkanovski to harass Topuria’s rear hand and throw in body kicks and head kicks around it. There was something to it, but it was peculiar to watch Volkanovski run clockwise for the entire duration of the bout, with no variation, against a man famous for timing his right hand over the top. (Of course, Volkanovski course corrected by fighting his entire bout against Diego Lopes circling in the other direction.)
This is where Topuria shines as the poster boy for an old principle of striking that we repeat ad nauseum: context matters. Most longtime fans can name a few great low kickers in the UFC who could not do anything useful with their fast, powerful low kicks. By reading the situation and throwing the correct technique at the correct time, Topuria became a great low kicker in the moment. Throwing just six low kicks in the entire fight, Topuria was able to buckle Volkanovski’s lead leg numerous times and make good progress towards slowing the champion down.
Fig. 1
The Max Holloway fight was another excellent showcase for Topuria’s low kick. No clever set ups, no combinations or feints, Topuria just timed the low kick on Holloway’s jabs. It was particularly successful when Holloway was trying to jab and slide off to Topuria’s right (safety lead style). But the low kick against Holloway as he bladed his stance to jab was a great weapon for Volkanovski in Volk-Holloway I and III, and it proved just as effective for Topuria.
Fig. 2
The Great Equalizer
Much of Topuria’s game is just an overhand. That can also be said of Artur Beterbiev and many other great boxers. There is no shame in having a wrecking ball of a right and building your game to fit that. “Building a game” is the hard part though. Recall all the great overhands that you have seen in MMA and boxing history, and most of them stopped working at a certain point.
In his last two fights, Topuria has met two of the best jabbers in the division. Against both, the plan seemed to be to crowd them and to throw the right hand across the top of the jab—the legendary “cross counter”.
Fig. 3
The Volkanovski fight was full of Volkanovski circling clockwise, jabbing, and Topuria swinging the big right hand across the top. The nearer they got to the cage, the more Volkanovski got into trouble trying to jab, circle, and lean back away from the counter.
Fig. 4
There was an odd mirror version of this fight earlier in 2025. Colby Thicknesse met Topuria’s brother, Alexander, with both Volkanovski and Ilia Topuria working their respective corners. Thicknesse had success circling, doubling and tripling jabs, and working left kicks up and down Topuria’s right side. Topuria had success crowding him to the fence, inviting him to do all of those things from unfavorable ring position, and clattering him with good overhands as he did so.
And that, again, is the difference between the Topuria overhand and that of Joe “The Pitbull” Bloggs: context. Topuria is not the world’s greatest ring cutter, and the pressure he applies is not constant, but there are obvious moments in fights where he realizes the value of pushing his opponent towards the cage and snatches the opportunity with both hands. Against Max Holloway he effectively used a double jab, and a stuttered feint-to-jab to back Holloway towards the fence, and then immediately followed with a second attack, led by his right hand across the top. You can similarly watch Topuria flatline Jai Herbert after scoring a cross counter over Herbert’s jab, and catching him square against the cage. And the theme continues with the Volkanovski and Damon Jackson finishes.
New Handfighting Looks
The Max Holloway fight was our most recent chance to study Topuria and it showed some new wrinkles to the existing tactics. Firstly, Topuria seemed to have evaluated Holloway and decided that hindering Holloway’s lead hand was more important than providing equal cover against Holloway’s rear hand. From the first round, Topuria adopted a rarely seen boxing tactic that I have heard called “sword and shield” but which I often refer to as the cross hand check.
Topuria carried his lead hand across his centreline, reaching towards and checking the path of Holloway’s jab. It looked as though he wanted to check the time on his watch.
Fig. 5
This obviously leaves an opening to the opponent’s right hand which, for a good boxer, is covered by the lead shoulder.
Wladimir Klitschko made use of the cross hand check to flick his opponent’s jab offline and then used a cross hand trap to tear down his opponent’s lead hand from the inside, lining up his thunderous right straight. Surprisingly, even if Klitschko’s opponent did not normally fight with his lead hand extended, engaging him with the cross hand check seemed to encourage him to reach out for it himself.
Fig. 6
In the last spurt of success enjoyed by Bernard Hopkins, the aged great played with this tactic to draw the right hand and try to land counters off the shoulder roll. In that context he was using two hands to complicate his opponent’s jab and simultaneously presenting them with a path of considerably less resistance, in order to get what he wanted. It also kept the fights a much lower pace which tended to work in the almost fifty-year-old Hopkins’ favour. Hopkins’ fight with Tavoris Cloud (where Hopkins became the oldest man to win a world title) is full of instances of Hopkins cross checking with his lead hand.
While there is nothing truly “new” in combat sports, the cross hand check position seems largely uncharted. In the few fights I have seen it used, it has created some unexpected openings.
Here, Hopkins’ cross hand check position leaves his left elbow high and his body looking appetizing. Cloud sticks in a body jab, Hopkins drops his forearm down on top of it, and immediately returns with a good jab to the head.
Fig. 7
B-Hop’s constant use of the cross hand check position also seemed, by some witchcraft, to open the path for leaping left hooks as a lead throughout the fight. Naked left hooks should definitely not be landing for the oldest champion in boxing history.
While Topuria’s adoption of this “sword and shield” position initially threw Max Holloway off, Holloway did find a couple of other ways to make Topuria pay. The first was a good folding right elbow, but he only scored this once. The second was a front kick to the midsection because Topuria’s lead elbow was open each time he reached out to cross hand check.
Fig. 8
The knee raise for this kick then hid the jumping side kick to the leg that seemed to repeatedly bother Topuria.
Topuria was not helpless though. He saw this kick coming and began to slam his left forearm down on top of it, then counter with his right hand. Similar to B-Hop’s counter to Cloud’s jab, this type of heavy, dropping forearm block just does not happen much in the average fight between traditionally trained strikers because it’s rare to be holding your arm high and away from you to begin with.
Fig. 9
Hand-Trapology
We will return to the cross hand check in a minute because it played a pivotal role in that bout. But first let us talk about some simpler hand traps / parries. When Topuria wasn’t reaching across himself with his lead hand, he would hold his hands square in front of his shoulders and create a window for Holloway to attack through. Topuria used this to perform some nice left handed parries of Josh Emmett’s right straight when they fought.
As Holloway jabbed through the window, Topuria performed a cross parry, left hand to left hand, and threw his right hand across the top again.
Fig. 10
You may remember this from Conor McGregor vs Nate Diaz and Petr Yan vs Aljamain Sterling. Even if the fighter eats the jab, the defensive parry serves the same purpose as an offensive hand trap: it clears the path for the fighter’s right hand. Even against very good boxers, a sharp parry on their wrist or forearm can pull their shoulder clear of their jaw as well.
In hand trapping you can make a distinction between two types of traps:
Trapping to clear the path of your own blow
Trapping to remove a likely counter
A classic example of the second idea is Fedor Emelianenko’s “Zulu” technique. Here he uses his right hand to clear his opponent’s left, moves his head onto their lead shoulder, and hammers them with a left hook. The hand trap does nothing to make Fedor’s hook land better, but it means Fedor can step right on top of the opponent’s lead shoulder without getting popped in the face with the jab.
Fig. 11
Topuria made excellent use of a left handed trap on Holloway’s right hand. In Figure 12, Topuria performs a slip to his left, coiling his shoulders (b), then reaches with his lead hand to trap Holloway’s rear hand (c). Topuria moves his head towards Holloway’s rear hand as he throws a booming right (d).
Fig. 12
It might not look like a lot, but by checking a hand, then throwing himself bodily towards it, a fighter can bum rush in a way that is a little less reckless. Figure 13 shows Topuria using the same technique to close, then landing a great left hook that stuns Holloway as the two get caught between clinching and punching ranges.
Fig. 13
A couple of times Topuria used this hand trap to close on Holloway, and Holloway threw his jab anyway and ended up in that awkward, both-hands-extended position that Jorge Masvidal made famous when he got starched by Kamura Usman. It is worth remembering that if you want to land your overhand, an opponent willingly jabbing across himself to reach you is an extremely positive thing. Think of Cain Velasquez pushing out a nothing jab across his body, to trade eating a flush Junior dos Santos overhand for the chance of lightly touching Dos Santos’ head.
To return to the cross hand check: hand trapping can be as deep as the ocean or as shallow as a puddle because all you are really doing is engaging in a schoolyard windmilling match, trying to pull the opponent’s hand out of the way before he can do the same to you. But within that, there is the chance to make reads and punish misreads.
Holloway opened the third round with two new looks: he started using his southpaw stance, and he began to check Topuria’s lead hand with his rear hand, preventing the cross hand position.
Figure 14 shows a brilliant sequence. Topuria approaches Holloway with his left elbow high and his left hand across his centreline, looking to engage in the “sword and shield” position. Holloway checks Topuria’s lead hand with his rear hand and pulls his own lead hand back to safety (a).
Fig. 14
Ahead of Pereira - Ankalaev, we discussed the danger of trying to break off the handfight by dropping the hands, while moving forwards. Against Adesanya, Pereira repeatedly got frustrated having his hands checked, then dropped them in order to free them, right in front of Adesanya. This got him blasted with right hands multiple times when he seemingly had Adesanya backed into a corner.
What Topuria did against Holloway was devious. Keeping his elbow, shoulder, and right hand high, he pushed into Holloway and the hand check (b). Topuria then took a slight step back and dropped his left hand to his chest (c). This resulted in Topuria freeing his hand, and Holloway overreaching and falling slightly forward with his hand down.
Fig. 15
Topuria immediately changed direction and swung his left hand around the side (d) to land a clean left hook on the jaw of the wrongfooted Holloway (e).
Fig. 16
A similar sequence played out again and marked the beginning of the end for Holloway (Figure 17). Topuria moved towards him and reached as if to assume that crossed-swords position again (a).
For Klitschko it seemed that the expectation that he would always assume this position opened up more offensive options than the position itself. Like many of Klitshko’s opponents, Holloway reaches to meet the hand on autopilot.
Topuria drops his hand low (b), and swings it around the side to strip Holloway’s right hand (c), and land a thudding right of his own (d).
Fig. 17
Here is the difficulty of explaining Topuria to a layman. Yes, having tremendous power helps. Yes, he only really does the basics. All we have talked about today is his right low kick, his overhand, and a weird thing he does with his lead hand sometimes. But it is his understanding of the ebb and flow of the fight, and his opponent’s expectations and existing options, that allow him to land those basics over and over to devastating effect against all manner of opponents.