LAS VEGAS — From Ilia Topuria’s title-winning first-round knockout to Joshua Van’s instant classic win over Brandon Royval in a legendary flyweight title eliminator, even the most overconfident fantasy bookers couldn’t have expected UFC 317 to deliver the way it did.
The timing was impeccable. As part of International Fight Week — where the UFC was desperate for a marquee moment — the company executed a card that could very well be looked at as the epicenter for the next five to 10 years of storylines in the sport.
Dana White often says he’s in the business of delivering “oh shit” moments. It’s hard to remember an event with more of them on this side of the decade.
Let’s start with Topuria. The 28-year-old Georgian-Spanish wunderkind established himself as the UFC’s next all-time great, knocking out the legendary Charles Oliveira in the first round.
Topuria spent the last few weeks insisting he would finish the fight within the first two or three minutes. He ended it just 2:27 after it began with a Ruthian called shot, landing a combo that immediately sent Oliveira to the canvas.
Topuria then engaged in a tense post-fight faceoff with prospective challenger Paddy Pimblett, which ended with Topuria shoving Pimblett, prompting security to intervene. It all felt very WWE — in the most complimentary sense.
“(Pimblett’s) the fight that I want,” Topuria said. “With Charles, I had a little bit of a difficult situation because I really like the guy. He’s a really great human being. You can’t hate him. But at the end, this is competition. I have to do my job and that’s it. With Paddy, I’m really going to enjoy kicking his ass.”
Then you move to the 23-year-old Van, who accepted Saturday’s bout with Royval on short notice after beating Bruno Gustavo da Silva just three weeks earlier at UFC 316 on June 7. The three-round slugfest immediately went into the annals as one of the great flyweight fights — and one of the great fights in general — in UFC history.
Van and Royval stood and banged for 15 minutes, no takedown attempts. Out of a combined 779 strikes thrown by the two fighters, 774 of them counted as significant strike attempts. Van dropped Royval in the closing seconds, not unlike the way Max Holloway dropped Justin Gaethje at UFC 300. However, Royval made it to the final bell.
“Going into the beginning of the third round, they had already broken into the top 10 all-time for significant strikes,” White said. “I think they ended up at three all-time and crushed the record in their weight division. They broke another record, too. I’m gonna pay Royval his win money. He took that fight with the No. 12-ranked guy on short notice and put on an absolute war.”
After Alexandre Pantoja secured his fourth consecutive title defense with a dominant submission win in the third round over Kai Kara-France, Pantoja and Van also engaged in a faceoff. This one was planned, however, and Pantoja showed a healthy amount of respect for his future opponent.
The main card opened with an entertaining bout between rising stars Payton Talbott and Felipe Lima. Talbott’s performance marked a turning point following a disappointing loss to Raoni Barcelos at UFC 311 in January. He is once again considered to be on a championship trajectory, and Saturday’s win — and the improvements he had to make to get there — solidified him as a fighter who could eventually rise to main event status.
The prelims ended with Gregory “Robocop” Rodrigues flatlining Jack Hermansson with a devastating knockout that saw Hermansson take several minutes to come to. In addition to Rodrigues’ crushing finish, two other fights on the prelims ended with first-minute knockouts, and another ended by submission a minute into the second round.
Saturday’s card proved the UFC didn’t need an established superstar like Conor McGregor or Jon Jones to deliver a classic fight night. Instead, it was rewarded with a superstar moment from Topuria and star-making performances from Van and Talbott. It may sound hyperbolic, but UFC 317 felt like a legitimate pole shift from a largely uninteresting era that the UFC was desperately trying to pull itself from.
