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The Bigger Picture | UFC 317: Topuria vs Oliveira
Diving Into The Larger Talking Points From International Fight Week’s Outstanding Pay-Per-View
Some nights feel magical right from the start, others just build and build and build until the final punches are thrown and you’re left standing gobsmacked, attempting to process everything you just witnessed and what it all means.
UFC 317 garnered momentum early and was building into the main card, but over the final three bouts, Saturday’s International Fight Week capstone went from being a tremendously enjoyable night of fights to something much greater.
Here are the takeaways and thoughts that I was left with following this past weekend’s incredible pay-per-view at T-Mobile Arena.
We’re Witnessing Greatness
Lots of people get a little prickly when you start talking about the pantheon status of a relatively young fighter. Heck, I generally get a little prickly when folks are quick to anoint someone as an all-time great in a sport that has honestly had only a few truly transcendent talents pass through over the years.
But I also don’t think it’s at all out of place to acknowledge that what Ilia Topuria is doing is different and special, and that the new lightweight champion is currently on a trajectory to stand alongside those few luminaries in MMA history.
MORE UFC 317: Main Card Results | Prelim Results | Official Scorecards |
It’s not just one thing with the 28-year-old, who claimed the vacant title and reached “double champ” status by dispatching Charles Olivera midway through the opening round of the UFC 317 main event — it’s how the whole package has come together and is presented, and how his personal brand of panache and style draws you in, rather than pushes you away.
Topuria remains unbeaten in his pro career, 17-0, with only two of those bouts going the distance. He’s won all nine of his UFC appearances to date, earning a bonus in each of the last six, while using his three most recent bouts to earn knockout wins over Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway, and Oliveira.
He’s predicted his victories with such calm clarity that you wonder if he can see the future, and can’t help but be impressed when things play out as he's forecasted. Plus, there is just a suaveness to the man that radiates cool and says, “I’m a world class athlete” in a way that no other mixed martial artist to date has been able to do.
And then there is the who and the how.
WATCH: Ilia Topuria Post-Fight Interview | UFC 317
Holloway and Volkanovski are two of the greatest featherweights in the history of the sport; rivals that followed one another at the top of their division and engaged in one of the best trilogies to take place inside the Octagon. Topuria dispatched them each last year without much trouble, becoming the first and only person to beat Volkanovski in the 145-pound weight class, and the first to stop Holloway with strikes eight months later.
Oliveira was also a former champion, one who holds multiple UFC records and has been a staple in the top tier of talent in the 155-pound weight class for the previous five or six years. He was supposed to be a threat, present a challenge for the former featherweight, who got buzzed by a long, rangy striker in his only previous UFC outing in the lightweight division.
Instead, he fell quicker than the rest; done in by a right hand to the jaw as Topuria promised, with the subsequent blows simply being muscle memory.
You want to say he can’t keep doing this forever because almost no one ever does, and it seems even more rare because he’s ascended to these heights while he’s still just 28, and therefore could have four, five, six good years left, easy, if he were so inclined, which tilts the odds in the favor of someone ending this unbeaten run and altering his trajectory at some point along the way.
But right now, there is no evidence from his career to support such a case. Each of the 17 individuals that have stood before him have fallen, and in the process, Topuria has claimed two UFC titles and began building a remarkable resume and legacy for himself.
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Some folks don't like watching greatness, watching dominant athletes dominate time and again, but I’m not one of those people.
The Topuria Era is already fascinating to me, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
Pantoja Is An Absolute Menace
It’s fitting that Alexandre Pantoja is chasing Demetrious Johnson when it comes to the flyweight record books because, like the UFC’s inaugural champion in the 125-pound weight class, the current titleholder is an absolute menace that should get far more attention than he is currently afforded.
The Brazilian ran through Kai Kara-France on Saturday, taking him down 15 seconds into the first round and dominating him there for the remainder of the frame before mixing things up a little more in the second, only to return to his grappling to secure the finish less than two minutes into the third. It was the fourth consecutive successful title defense for the American Top Team product, who won the belt in a closely contested, hotly debated bout with Brandon Moreno two years prior during International Fight Week.
WATCH: Alexandre Pantoja Post-Fight Interview | UFC 317
More importantly, it was Pantoja’s second consecutive lights out effort where he played to his strength and showed that he's a level (or two) above the competition on the canvas. Like Kai Asakura before him, Kara-France had no real answers; he had thoughts and ideas and tactics that made the champion work harder and have to shift and adjust during some of the takedown attempts, but ultimately, Pantoja got to where he wanted to go and wrapped up the challenger's neck expertly.
Flyweight has never been held in the same high regard as the more typically central weight classes in the UFC, which is nuts, because Johnson was, hands-down, the best pound-for-pound fighter on the roster during his record-breaking reign atop the 125-pound weight class, and the division has never been better than it is right now.
And the champion is, to borrow a phrase Sean O’Malley used in describing bantamweight ruler Merab Dvalishvili, “a m*****f*****,” and we should be celebrating the hell out of fighters like that because they are so few and far between.
Pantoja has not only already posted two wins over his top two rivals in the division (The Brandons), but he’s taken out a pair of dangerous strikers in consecutive outings, turning their weapons into non-factors before squaring off with the prodigious rising star that punched his ticket to a championship opportunity earlier in the night, happily declaring him next and voicing his excitement about facing a new challenge later this year.
View Alexandre Pantoja's Profile Page
Pantoja can be counted on to make two appearances a year, without fail, and take on whomever the UFC says is next.
And more likely than naught, he’s going to dominate them, adding another ruby to his flyweight title before receding back into the shadows until it’s time for him to be brilliant all over again later in the year.
DWCS Class of ’24 Keeps Impressing
Towards the end of last year, I put together a piece reviewing what transpired on Season 8 of Dana White’s Contender Series. In that feature, I suggested that the top-end talent to earn contracts in this most recent season had the chance to be something special, and put last season in the mix as the best crop of graduates yet.
Saturday night, a couple members of the class delivered performances that further strengthened that case.
UFC 317 POST-FIGHT INTERVIEWS: Jacobe Smith | Jose Miguel Delgado
Jacobe Smith earned his second consecutive stoppage win to begin his UFC tenure, submitting welterweight mainstay Niko Price in the second round. The Oklahoma State alum and Fortis MMA representative is 11-0 overall, with nine finishes, and clearly profiles as one to watch in the 170-pound weight class.
A few fights later, Jose Miguel Delgado quickly and emphatically bounced Hyder Amil from the ranks of the unbeaten to secure his second straight first-round stoppage win to open his UFC career. The MMA Lab product put a stepping knee on Amil’s chin in the midst of an exchange between the two, and swiftly followed up to force the stoppage, advancing to 2-0 inside the Octagon and 10-1 overall in the process.
Along with the UFC 317 standouts, last year’s grad class also includes Lone’er Kavanagh (2-0 UFC), Mansur Abdul-Malik (3-0), Navajo Stirling (2-0), and the Luistro Combat Academy tandem of Cody Haddon (1-0) and Quillan Salkilld (2-0), each of whom has shown promise, as well. Add in Kevin Vallejos, Tallison Teixeira, and Mario Pinto, all of whom earned finishes in their first Octagon appearances, as well as middleweight Marco Tulio and recent welterweight winner Andreas Gustafsson, and you have an impressive pack of first-year fighters that have enjoyed some level of success at this early stage of their careers.
It’s an impressive pack, and Smith and Delgado reminded me of that with their blistering showings at UFC 317 over the weekend.
Quick Hitters
Beneil Dariush rallied to beat Renato Moicano in a victory that had to feel incredibly sweet to the humble family man and tenured lightweight standout. Dariush got clipped late in the first round, which gave off the feeling like the fight had now shifted into a different phase where Moicano would be able to build momentum and drown Dariush, but that wasn’t the case, as the 38-year-old steadied himself and took the fight to his Brazilian counterpart the rest of the way.
Payton Talbott bounced back from his first career setback with a hard-fought win over fellow emerging talent Felipe Lima. This was the kind of performance you wanted to see from Talbott coming off his loss in January, and he warmed into the contest the more time passed, turning in the best, most complete performance of his relatively brief UFC career.
Gregory Rodrigues has fight-altering power in his hands. “Robocop” laid out Jack Hermansson with one shot, shifting their preliminary card fight from competitive to completely over in about seven seconds, tops.
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Tracy Cortez leaned on her wrestling to grind out a much-needed win over Viviane Araujo. After some health scares last year, this was a nice rebound effort from the Fight Ready representative, who should get a chance to take another step forward in the 125-pound weight class in the back half of the year.
Terrance McKinney might be figuring out how to put his abundant natural skills and tools to best use, as he wrapped up his second first-round submission win since moving to Florida and teaming up with Julien Williams. McKinney trucked Viacheslav Borshchev, and is someone that should go back on everyone’s watch list as we head into the second half of the year.
One Last Thing
What Joshua Van has done this year and in his two years on the UFC roster in general is insane.
Five years ago, Van didn’t know what the UFC was, and now two years after his short-notice debut win, he’s the No. 1 contender and poised to be the next to face Pantoja for the title. He got to this point by first accepting a second assignment this month, stepping in opposite Brandon Royval when Manel Kape was forced out, and then by getting the better of Royval in an absolutely thrilling back-and-forth battle in the middle of Saturday’s main card.
Nine fights, eight wins, and the No. 1 contender in a talent-rich division like flyweight, all in two years plus a couple of days.
View Joshua Van's Profile Page
Oh… and he's only 23 too.
This kid is bananas.
And with that, I’m out.
See you again after UFC 318
UFC 317: Topuria vs Oliveira took place live from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 28, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
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