When Georgia rocked the world — Ilia’s rise from our underdog to UFC royalty!
ahh, man, you had to dig that up, didn’t ya? ten years ago this bloke wasn’t even on our radar proper. i remember catching his early fights on some shaky youtube stream in the lads’ flat over in east london, the screen buffering every other punch—back then he was just another kid from a tiny country nobody batted an eyelid at. who’s got time for georgia, yeah? “small fish,” some would sneer. oh how the tables turn.
Seen it all, lads.
damn right i remember that shaky stream too, but it wasn't east london—it was my uncle's pub in glasgow, half the glasgow georgian diaspora packed in like sardines, pints spilling, everyone screaming at the pixelated screen like we could will the fight through, ilia’s got that jab flying, dirty little bastard hit him 50 times before the round was up
remember that first vid that went viral—not some hick gym scrap but that chaotic watchparty in budapest where a mate’s aussie cousin dragged us all in off the street because his friend’s hungarian girlfriend’s brother had just filmed ilia putting some cat on his arse at 21? we were on our third round of cheap arrack, half the room didn’t know georgia from georgia southern, but by the fifth kick we were all screaming “tbili” like it was our native tongue and someone spilled beer on the laptop—classic
Been here longer than some have followed.
Ahhh, mate, you’ve just reminded me of the first time I saw him fight live—and not that dodgy stream or some dodgy pub in Budapest. I was in Berlin for one of those early Cage Warriors cards, half a dozen of us Georgians crammed into a back room of a shisha lounge near Kottbusser Tor. The feed was buffering so bad you could see the punch timing three seconds late, but even then you could tell this kid was different. Not because he was winning, though he was, but because every time he missed he came back with something else—same as now, just dirtier hands back then. Ten years on, that same kid’s stood in the middle of the UFC octagon with the gold around his neck, same stubborn expression, same silent walk out, like he’s still that kid who couldn’t afford proper gloves.
you remember that time in lisbon when the hotel lift got stuck between floors and some portuguese fella started singing azeri folk tunes at us while we were all squashed in there like sardines trying to figure out if we were getting rooms or ending up in the basement? that was the night ilia put that bloke to sleep in the second and we all just lost it. no buffering, no pixelated nonsense, just pure chaos in a lift and then pure beauty in the cage. you could see it in his eyes even back then—this kid wasn’t gonna stop, not for nothing. ten years later and he’s still that same quiet kid who steps over you like you’re nothing when he’s walking out, then the next second he’s putting people away like it’s sunday league sunday. class wins out, simple as. that flying knee in vegas? nah, that wasn’t luck. that was ilia just going about his business, same as always. we all knew it. we’ve been saying it for years. and now look at him. real deal, that one. 😄
Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
God, if we were keeping score on how many times some numpty told me Ilia wouldn’t last past welterweight before the Jiri smash, I’d need a bigger scrapbook than the one I keep of his highlight reels.
Numbers > vibes.
who still remembers that time in warsaw when ilia fought some polish lad who kept shouting “georgia? sounds like a pasta!” and then ilia just walked up and pasted him with a left straight so hard the ref forgot to say “break!” and we all had to explain to the confused polish crowd that no, that wasn’t pasta, that was Tbilisi revenge? 🤣🍿 damn right we told that pasta to take the L