Ilia Topuria went out for the fourth round against Justin Gaethje after his own corner told the cageside doctor he could “barely see anything,” according to footage the UFC released Friday. The clip, shared by Championship Rounds and Dovy on X, shows Aleksandre Topuria calling for the doctor between the third and fourth rounds after Ilia told him about his vision. Referee Marc Goddard heard it and waved things on anyway.
“I’m happy to let this go. Ilia, put yourself back in the fight, okay?” Goddard says on the audio.
So Topuria went back out. He made it through Round 4, and then the decision fell to the corner. Aleksandre stopped the fight before the fifth, and Goddard can be heard thanking him for it: “Aleks, thank you bro. Good decision.”
View post on X
Read those two quotes back to back. The same referee who was happy to let it go one round earlier ended up thanking the brother for pulling the plug. The doctor was called and the referee made his call. Then the person with the least official authority in the building made the right one.
How It Got There
The early rounds looked like Topuria’s fight. The UFC also released corner reaction footage from Round 2, when Topuria dropped Gaethje with a body shot. Over in Gaethje’s corner, Trevor Wittman was caught on camera smiling while his guy hit the canvas, which is either the calmest coaching I’ve ever seen or a man who already knew something about the next three rounds.
Heading into the third, Aleksandre told his brother he had the first two banked. “Ilia, say calm this round. You’re up 2-0 brother. Work calmly this round. Enjoy your work,” he said in the released audio.
View post on X
That’s the corner’s scorecard, not the judges’, but it tracks with a fighter who’d just dropped Gaethje to the body. Somewhere in Round 3, the fight flipped. By the end of it, Topuria was telling his corner he couldn’t see, and by the end of the fourth, it was over.
After the loss, Aleksandre was filmed consoling him. “You’re the best. This is a sport. You’re a man and that’s what matters most,” he told Ilia.
The sources don’t say what’s next for either man, and I’m not going to guess at a rematch or a medical suspension until someone with actual information says so.
View post on X
Quick Take
I’ve lost money on fighters who were up 2-0 and still found a way to lose, so I don’t need a lecture on how fast a fight turns. Gaethje is the guy you never count out after a knockdown, and he proved it again. But the betting question was settled. What should bother everyone is the sequence on that audio. A fighter says he can barely see, the doctor gets called, and the answer is “put yourself back in the fight.” Then a full round later the referee is grateful somebody else stopped it. If the officials needed the brother to make the call, they should’ve made it themselves one round earlier, back when Topuria told everyone in that corner he couldn’t see the punches coming.
