{"id":771162,"date":"2026-06-30T14:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/771162\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T14:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:07:08","slug":"dvalishvili-blames-eye-pokes-for-topuria-loss-ilia-was-fighting-blind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/771162\/","title":{"rendered":"Dvalishvili blames eye pokes for Topuria loss: \u2018Ilia was fighting blind\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dvalishvili and Topuria are going through similar situations, having gone from seemingly invincible to both losing their belts in their last fight. Dvalishvili lost<\/a> a clear decision to Petr Yan in Dec. 2025, while Topuria got into a car wreck<\/a> with Justin Gaethje that left him with two broken orbitals<\/a> and a broken nose.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with MMA Fighting<\/a>, \u201cThe Machine\u201d discussed the Topuria loss and what went wrong for \u201cEl Matador\u201d in the cage.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The] fight was really tough,\u201d Dvalishvili said. \u201cUnfortunately, Ilia was fighting blind since the first round. I think one moment Justin Gaethje threw a punch [with his thumb extended], I think he eye poked him. It was even worse and then Ilia [was] blind in both eyes. He [wanted] to keep fighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you got eye poked or you broke this [orbital] bone, you are blind pretty much,\u201d he added. \u201cThat affects the fight. That was the main thing. Ilia was fighting blind. That\u2019s what Ilia said.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been footage floating around recently showing Gaethje throwing a punch and catching Topuria in the eye with a thumb. A similar thumb-poke<\/a> landed against Paddy Pimblett in his last fight, too (read more on that here<\/a>), making some fans question whether Gaethje was doing it on purpose.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have very big confidence [that] Ilia is not only going to come back, he will come back even stronger,\u201d Dvalishvili said. \u201cHe will come so motivated. He\u2019s special. Like I said, it was a couple of things. He got eye poked and he got a [broken] bone in his nose, I believe. Then that affects his fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, he will come back and he will win his belt back and he will continue his winning streak again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dvalishvili and Topuria are going through similar situations, having gone from seemingly invincible to both losing their belts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,38688,98879,702],"class_list":["post-771162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-medical-suspensions","tag-ufc-white-house-2026","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}