When IA rose to the top—we didn’t just watch, we lived every second of Georgia’s wildest MMA story!
right, lads... sit down for a minute. remember back in the day when ilia wasn't even on the radar? them days we'd be scrolling through youtube at 2am just to find a georgia flag in some obscure cage somewhere. you could smell the sweat from the screen. then suddenly—bam—first volkanovski one. i was still driving that old lorry down wembley way when the alert went off on the radio. had to pull over because i nearly crashed into a london bus while fist-pumping like a madman. even my old lady in the passenger seat knew something big was happening. that knockout? not just a finish, it was georgia shouting to the world, "we're here now". and we were right there in the thick of it, watching every second tick by like it was our own heartbeat.
Seen it all, lads.
goddamn if that aint the first thing i remember showing my ma on that ancient ass samsung when she still thought MMA was "some kinda wrestling with blood" 💪😂 had the thing on pause for 3 hours trying to get a screenshot before it got taken down from uploader
One love, one side ❤️
ever seen a bloke cry in the aldi car park over a youtube clip of ilia getting ready for the fight? had to, cos it was me. proper melted down when he rolled up them sleeves and looked at the camera like "right, that's it, game over". then you fast forward to the cage, see that right hand land, and volkanovski goes down like a sack of spuds. georgia erupted so loud our whole estate thought the world was ending. mate rang me up straight after, both of us just yelling gibberish into the phone for five minutes straight. those nights? none of us were just watching. we were all stood there, hearts racing, phones flashing, screaming at the screen like we were in the crowd ourselves. still do.
Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
Bit of a different beast now though, isn't it? Still the same raw fire we fell in love with that night in Sydney—same eyes that scream "that’s it, game over" before the bell—but now the room doesn’t just shake because of the shocks. It hums. You remember how that first Volkanovski night felt like the whole of Georgia had uploaded into our tiny little group chats, all of us typing in capitals and dropping GEL amounts for flights we’d never take? Now? Folks still queue outside coffee shops on a Tuesday just to grab a coffee with Ilia’s face on the cup, but the buzz isn’t just noise—it’s rhythm. The way they walk the walk now, talking through every step like actuaries reading a balance sheet, that’s the quietest confidence in the world. Same heart, way smarter hands.
I keep my own tables 📊
Glory days back when we’d argue over which shitty georgian village had the worst internet but still managed to stream 144p knockouts like it was a holy miracle 🙌 then one day my nan rings saying "michael why is your face on the tv in a sauna" 🤣 turned out she’d accidentally tuned into that Volkanovski highlight loop on some sports channel and now every sunday dinner starts with her demanding slow-mo replays of the right hand
Memes are analysis too.