Ilia Topuria did what no one has ever done when he put Max Holloway down and out with a vicious knockout to defend his title and cap off the UFC 308 main event.

It was a stunning performance from the reigning featherweight champion as he dealt with some adversity in moments as Holloway kept after him with a nasty lead jab and showing patience in the exchanges. But it was only a matter of time until Topuria found his opening and it was a huge right hand in the third round that wobbled Holloway and sent him stumbling towards the cage.

Topuria immediately seized on the opening as he rushed forward and unloaded a massive left hook that twisted Holloway’s head around and sent him crashing to the canvas. A few more hammer fists followed but the fight was already over as the referee rushed in to rescue Holloway with the end coming at 1:34 in the third round.

While there was a lot of talk between them beforehand, Topuria paid homage to Holloway in his post-fight interview.

“I don’t know what to say to be honest,” Topuria said following his first title defense. “To beat a legend like Max Holloway, it’s something that I can’t even believe. He inspired me so much in my career. He’s been a great example for the new generation.

“I’ve always said now that I represent the new generation. I hope I’m going to be a small portion of the example for what he’s been for me, for the new generation. All the credit to Max Holloway. He’s the man.”

Prior to the finish, Topuria definitely knew he had a fight on his hand with a back-and-forth battle throughout the first two rounds of the fight.

As the action got started, Topuria actually caught Holloway by surprise with a well-timed takedown but featherweights were quick to get back to the feet. On the restart, Holloway peppered away with a good lead jab and Topuria countered with a nasty calf kick followed by a hard right hand behind it.

Topuria was really loading up with his punches while Holloway showed poise and patience as he continued to operate behind that lead jab. A late flurry allowed Topuria to connect with a solid shot as the fighters stumbled to the floor but the action stalled before the horn sounded to end the round.

While Holloway was still connecting consistently with that same straight punch, Topuria finally started finding a home for his big overhand punches as he dipped inside with no fear of reprisal. He popped Holloway with a hard left and a stiff right as Topuria started gaining some confidence in the exchanges.

Still, Holloway maintained his range and backed out before Topuria could really do the most damage possible with his immense power. In return, Holloway continued chipping away at the champion, which included a heavy right hand that popped Topuria in the jaw.

Almost like he was just biding his time and waiting for the right moment to unleash his true power, Topuria came out aggressive in the third round and he led with those same devastating hooks that put Holloway on notice. As he continued pressing forward, Topuria cracked Holloway with the right hand that spelled the beginning of the end.

With Holloway wobbled, Topuria set up the fight finishing punch as he unleashed the left hand that put the Hawaiian down and out for the first time in his legendary career.

“I caught him with many punches but exactly with that right hand, I felt it,” Topuria said about the knockout. “I just saw it in his face. He started making some steps back. You don’t see that often in Max Holloway. I felt that. My brother told me from the corner keep pushing, keep putting the pressure on him, this is what I did and finally I got the knockout.”

While it obviously wasn’t the result he wanted, Holloway had nothing but praise when addressing Topuria and his performance on Saturday.

“We got ready for everything,” Holloway said. “He just landed a shot and I guess it hurt much more than I thought it did. I felt great until he did it. That’s this sport. Hats off to him.

“No excuses, I feel great. I had a great camp, no injuries. I went out here, did my thing. He was just the better man tonight. He gave me the name ‘bounce back’ so I’ll see you again, my friend.”

In back-to-back fights, Topuria has now knocked out arguably two of the greatest featherweights in UFC history as he cements his own legacy as champion. Following his win, Topuria was greeted by Alexander Volkanovski in the cage, who is presumably next in line for a rematch with hopes that he can reclaim the title.

Topuria appears more than willing to offer him that opportunity and the same goes for Diego Lopes, who weighed in as the backup fighter for UFC 308.

“I want to have both of them,” Topuria said. “I swear to god. We’re going to do it again. [Volkanovski] deserves that. If someone deserve it, it’s him.”

There was plenty of fanfare for Pato O’Ward ( Pato O’ ) in the buildup earlier in the week, including over 3,000 fans showing up for a recent sponsor appearance at the Plaza Reforma 222 shopping mall in downtown Mexico City.

However, the 25-year-old from Monterrey, who regularly drives for Arrow McLaren in the IndyCar Series, was strictly about business once he strapped into title contender Lando Norris’s McLaren MCL38 as part of F1’s rookie practice requirements.

The outing turned into an eventful hour session for O’Ward, dodging some of the carnage to log 21 laps and ending just over 0.3s from teammate Oscar Piastri’s best time (1m18.958s).

Fans show their support for Pato O’Ward, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

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Overall, O’Ward was simply trying to provide the team with valuable feedback with recent upgrades, including a new floor.

“My job was to gather information for the team because there were obviously upgrades on my car and there was a big emphasis on being consistent and being able to gather that information,” O’Ward told Motorsport.com in an exclusive. 

“That was the main priority. Obviously, it was a pretty hectic FP1 session; a lot of red flags, a lot of time spent in the garage. But, that’s how it goes. You’ve got three or four flying laps on the hard (tire compound) and then one lap on the soft.

“I’m pretty pleased with how we were able to tackle all of that information and we were able to extract what we needed to from our run plan, because it was definitely not a very clean session in terms of other guys having accidents — and glad everyone’s all right — but definitely a session that threw curve balls at us.”

Pato O’Ward, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Quickly up to speed

When asked how close to the limit he was able to reach considering this was his first session of the year at a track — Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez — he’d not yet driven, O’Ward provided a candid comparison:

“I mean, put this in the scenario: put a Formula 1 driver in an IndyCar for practice one and I guarantee you they don’t get within a 1.5s of whoever the leader was,” O’Ward said. 

“That just doesn’t happen. You can’t really test these cars and at a track that you don’t really know, and in a car that you don’t know at all that you’ve never driven.

“The only way of extracting the most out of a car is you need to find its limit; by finding the limit, you need to go over the limit, but obviously, when you go over the limit, you play with risk and when you’re playing with risk, there’s a possibility that if it does go wrong, there’s going to be a lot of very unhappy people with you. And that is the first thing I did not want to do, so I was pleased with the job that I did and what I got to extract from the car.”

Judd Trump will meet Kyren Wilson in the Northern Ireland Open decider after easing to a 6-0 semi-final win over Elliot Slessor in Belfast.

The holder and world number one hit breaks of 78, 61 and 90 at the Waterford Hall in Saturday night’s victory.

Slessor could only manage 62 points in the match against Trump, who is aiming to win the tournament for the fifth time.

Standing in his way is fellow English player Wilson, a 6-4 winner against Pang Junxu earlier on Saturday.

Wilson compiled a break of 110 in the first frame but his Chinese opponent replied with a run of 83 to draw level.

The reigning world champion took frames three and four, the former with the help of a 77 break, then Pang responded to reduce his deficit to 3-2.

ABU DHABI – Ilia Topuria delivered on his promise of taking out Max Holloway at UFC 308.

Featherweight champion Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) became the first fighter to knock out Holloway (26-8 MMA, 22-8 UFC) when he put his lights out at the 1:34 mark of Round 3. The featherweight title bout was the UFC 308 main event at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.

Just like Topuria promised, he pointed to the ground in the middle of the octagon, but Holloway didn’t oblige. Holloway started his attack with a couple of kicks, as Topuria stalked him. Topuria landed a big combination, finding Holloway’s chin with a left hook. Topuria then mixed things up by taking Holloway down, but couldn’t keep him there. Topuria connected with a right, as he continued to head hunt. Holloway landed a nice teep, followed by a one-two down the middle. With seconds remaining in the round, Topuria dropped Holloway with a left hook and tried to take his back.

In Round 2, Holloway pumped out his jab, while Topuria lunged forward with combinations. Topuria continued to find Holloway’s chin, but Holloway would turn away from his punches without allowing him to connect clean. Holloway landed two counter left hooks, followed by a big right. Both men were having success on the feet, but neither able to stun the other. Holloway capped off Round 2 with his signature spinning heel kick to the body.

Holloway started Round 3 off with a body kick, then a push kick to the thigh. Topuria landed a nice left hook, but Holloway stumbled him with a leg kick. Topuria charged at Holloway with a big overhand right which stunned him, then a left hook which sent him crashing to the canvas. A few follow up shots were able to put Holloway out cold.

AND STILL! ILIA TOPURIA KNOCKS OUT MAX HOLLOWAY 😱 #UFC308@VisitAbuDhabi | #InAbuDhabi | @InAbuDhabi pic.twitter.com/i5jFREYYXC

— UFC Europe (@UFCEurope) October 26, 2024

Topuria was greeted by Alexander Volkanovski in the octagon – the man he knocked out to claim the featherweight title at UFC 298. Topuria paid Volkanovski respect, and said he’s willing to grant him a rematch.

Up-to-the-minute UFC 308 results include:

• Ilia Topuria def. Max Holloway via KO (punches) – Round 3, 1:34 – to defend featherweight title
• Khamzat Chimaev def. Robert Whittaker via submission (face crank) – Round 1, 3:34
• Magomed Ankalaev def. Aleksandar Rakic via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
• Lerone Murphy def. Dan Ige via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
• Shara Magomedov def. Armen Petrosyan via TKO (spinning back fist) – Round 2, 4:52
• Ibo Aslan def. Rafael Cerqueira via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 0:51
• Geoff Neal def. Rafael dos Anjos via TKO (knee injury) – Round 1, 1:40
• Mateusz Rebecki def. Myktybek Orolbai via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
• Abus Magomedov def. Brunno Ferreira via submission (arm triangle) – Round 3, 3:14
• Kennedy Nzechukwu def. Chris Barnett via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 4:27
• Farid Basharat def. Victor Hugo via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
• Ismail Naurdiev def. Bruno Silva via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• Rinat Fakhretdinov def. Carlos Leal via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 308.

Oscar Piastri completed the final practice session ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix on top of the timesheets, 0.059 seconds clear of McLaren Formula 1 team-mate Lando Norris.

The two McLarens had sat about three tenths clear of the rest of the field led by early session headliner Carlos Sainz, as the Ferrari driver could not capitalise on his pace in the first half of the session.

In response to FP2 being employed as a Pirelli tyre test, the drivers spent the early laps getting experience with the soft and medium tyres.

Max Verstappen set the first lap on soft tyres straight out of the gate as he sought to make up for limited running on Friday; the Dutchman’s power unit was changed to overcome the air leak that plagued him yesterday. He set the pace with a 1m18.397s, but this was swiftly beaten.

George Russell, another driver recovering from Friday’s woes after his FP2 necessitated a chassis switch, found a 1m18.284s – but Lewis Hamilton had this beaten by about a tenth and a half.

Sainz then broke below the 1m18s barrier to log a 1m17.825s lap, which team-mate Charles Leclerc got close to; Sainz then improved to a 1m17.447s to raise the bar, and improved again by a tenth to continue his presence at the top of the order.

Verstappen kicked off the bonafide qualifying simulations with a 1m17.003s but looked scruffy in the middle sector, and this left his lap open to Lando Norris’ subsequent effort. The Briton put together a 1m16.551s to put distance between himself and Verstappen, although Oscar Piastri found half a tenth over his team-mate to go quickest.

Sainz was third fastest with a 1m16.832s, ensuring that he also moved ahead of Verstappen – who struggled with front braking and failed to improve on his follow-up effort.

Although Hamilton felt that his own lap to go fifth fastest had been a good one, he was alarmed by the over-half-second pace deficit to the McLarens.

A late attempt by Charles Leclerc to rise higher than sixth looked to be on as he improved in the opening sector, but lost time in the middle part of the lap thanks to traffic on his lap at the death of the session.

Yuki Tsunoda was seventh fastest over Russell, while Kevin Magnussen and Liam Lawson (who suffered a brief spin in the Foro Sol in the opening half of the session) completed the top 10. Magnussen did not improve on his first effort with the softs having locked up at Turn 12, but a second attempt brought him into the top half of the field.

This was at Alex Albon’s expense, as the Anglo-Thai shook off his FP1 crash and the subsequent missing of FP2 to outpace team-mate Franco Colapinto by two tenths – the Williams split by Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas.

AN MLS footballer has died shockingly aged just 25.

Philadelphia Union announced the tragic passing of goalkeeper Holden Trent on Saturday afternoon.

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No cause of death has been released at this stage.

But the club are in mourning following the awfully sad news.

They said: “The Philadelphia Union is devastated by the heartbreaking passing of Holden Trent.

“While he was a wonderful player and fierce competitor, he was more importantly a devoted son, brother, fiance, and team-mate who made those around him better.

“He embodied the true meaning of determination, dedication and perseverance, and he will be deeply missed.

“We extend our greatest sympathies to his family, his fiance and his friends.”

Trent’s family also posted a statement of their own on the goalkeeper’s Instagram page.

They wrote: “We want to thank everyone for your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

“Holden passed away this afternoon surrounded by his family and friends.

“Details on services and celebration of life are forthcoming.

“Our family is deeply touched to see and experience the love you all have for Holden.

“Love, Holden’s Family.”

THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY..

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