Ilia Topuria is officially the MMA superstar of Europe. Now what?

4. And still undefeated (Ilia Topuria vs. Movsar Evloev)

Russian fighter Movsar Evloev is currently ranked at No. 5 in the UFC featherweight rankings. He’s got an even sexier undefeated record than Ilia Topuria, 18-0 compared to the champion’s 15-0, and has won eight UFC bouts which is one more than the Topuria has.

That is all stuff that is speaking for Evloev, with the option of pitting undefeated fighters against each other in a UFC title fight as his main selling point as it’s something that doesn’t really happen too often at this level in our sport.

However, Evloev is a bit boring quite frankly. He has only won by decision in the UFC and holds just two wins against ranked fighters in the current No. 12 Dan Ige and most recently the No. 6 ranked Arnold Allen.

Evloev reminds me a bit of Kamaru Usman before he seized the welterweight throne. Of course, Usman would eventually gain a lot of fans and respect for his tremendous championship run, but he had to fight hard to get there and even took some heat from Dana White along the way as the UFC boss criticised him for a poor showing against unranked Emil Meek.

Usman had to win nine fights in a row to prove himself worthy of a title shot and I suspect Evloev too will have to win at least one more fight before he’s looked at as a serious contender.