Ilia Topuria is a rising star in Spain, where his win over Alexander Volkanovski was promoted by several major soccer clubs in the country. He’s already a full-fledged icon in his native Georgia, where crowds flocked to watch him win the UFC featherweight title at UFC 298.
Today’s feel-good video pack comes care of Setanta Sports, who have the broadcast rights to UFC in several European countries. That allowed them to set up a screening of UFC 298 in the center of Tblisi for locals to watch hometown heroes Merab Dvalishvili and Ilia Topuria fight on Saturday night’s pay-per-view.
Or more accurately, Sunday morning: it was 7AM in Georgia when the main card kicked off.
This is how we love our first ever UFC Champion Ilia Topuria and our future UFC Champion Merab Dvalishvili in Georgia!
Thousands of people in different places at 7AM, in 3 degrees with rain, went to the streets to watch and cheer for our warriors ⚔
Setanta Sports is MMA! ❤ pic.twitter.com/l0aurpNLDy
— Giorgi Kokiashvili (@iHeartGeorgius1) February 18, 2024
The crowd swelled for Dvalishvili, who beat the brakes off Henry Cejudo for three rounds en route to a unanimous decision victory. By the time Topuria was fighting Volkanovski, the city square was packed with fans. The whole place went mad when “El Matador” knocked out Volk in the second round.
Merab Dvalishvili commented on the support from Georgian fans during the UFC 298 post-fight press conference.
“Today’s a historical moment for the country of Georgia,” he said. “All the country was up, they wake up early, all the restaurants are booked, the people are watching in stadiums, everywhere, they’re in the streets now celebrating. As you guys see, so many Georgians came to the arena, the flag was everywhere. My country is proud. We have the first Georgian UFC champion, it means a lot.”
“My country was always supporting me,” he added. “And I want to tell them thank you so much and I will just continue hard work, make them proud, and I will give a good example and motivation to young people. It doesn’t matter where you come from, you come from a farmer’s family like me, and if you work hard, hard work will pay off, and everything is possible.”
Something seemed to happen at UFC 298 as Merab mauled “Triple C” — fans that usually didn’t enjoy his wrestling-heavy style started cheering for him as he laughed his way through a dominant victory. Could we be seeing the beginning of Dvalishvili getting his flowers as a Khabib Nurmagomedov level dominator on the ground?
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
