Ilia Topuria has a way of leaving even the most verbose fight observers speechless, and with each passing appearance, he continues adding to his burgeoning legacy.

Saturday night at UFC 317, the 28-year-old claimed the vacant lightweight title with a vicious knockout win over Charles Oliveira, sending his opponent crashing to the canvas in the centre of the Octagon just before the midway point of the first round.

It was a blistering shot that put the former champion out on his feet, and the rapid blows that followed were expertly placed and purely academic.

Oliveira was out, Topuria was triumphant, and his place in the pantheon of all-time greats got even stronger.

It’s genuinely difficult to contextualize what Topuria has done to this point in his career because it’s amongst the rarest occurrences you will find. In a sport where everyone struggles at various points and only a handful of luminaries have navigated their careers without suffering a loss, “El Matador” continues to live up to his nickname, dodging both difficulties and defeats as he continues to square off with elite competitors and former champions.

The new lightweight champion is 9-0 in the UFC, with seven of those victories coming inside the distance. Even more impressively, he’s 3-0 in championship bouts, having earned consecutive stoppage victories over Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway, and now Oliveira, a three-fight run of success that ranks amongst the best in UFC history.

Those athletes each had impressive reigns atop their respective divisions and stood as major question marks for the emerging superstar that represents both Georgia and Spain on the world stage.

Last February at UFC 298, he blew through Volkanovski to claim the featherweight title, but people wondered if the Australian had simply returned to action too quickly after having been knocked out by Islam Makhachev in their second meeting in the fall of 2023.

Holloway, a former featherweight champion, had never been stopped by strikes and was supposed to be the next huge challenge for the newly minted titleholder, and just as he forecasted, Topuria became the first to finish him in that matter, ending things 94 seconds into the third round at UFC 308.

Saturday night, he needed only half a round to dispatch Oliveira, making good on his promise to find his chin and settle him in a hurry.

In claiming the lightweight title, Topuria becomes the 10th fighter to earn championship gold in two weight classes, ascending to a position alongside Randy Couture, B.J. Penn, Conor McGregor, Georges St-Pierre, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes, Henry Cejudo, Jon Jones, and Alex Pereira. Each of those competitors is either already in the UFC Hall of Fame or destined to be enshrined at some point in the future.

He’s also just the second to manage the featherweight-lightweight double, following the path first blazed by the notorious Irishman, who held the two titles simultaneously. While achieving “double champ” status is a monumental achievement, getting there in two of the deepest and most competitive weight classes in the sport is quite something.

His featherweight run was ultra-impressive, with even his debut win over Youssef Zalal aging nicely, and the stoppages of Volkanovski and Holloway remain two of the most impressive championship wins in the last couple of years. Adding this finish over Oliveira to the mix just takes it to another level.

While that weird run where “everyone” was becoming a two-division champion made the accomplishment seem less incredible, make no mistake about it: it’s a monumental achievement and Topuria getting there by beating the former champions he’s slayed, all while maintaining a zero in his loss column is insane.

Now here’s the truly fascinating part: Topuria only turned 28 at the start of the year, meaning he’s just now inching into his athletic prime, and the prospects of knocking him from this new throne feel daunting at the moment.

There are an abundance of challengers at the ready and a couple of the potential matchups stand as fascinating clashes that would test the new champion in myriad ways – Paddy Pimblett, Arman Tsarukyan and Justin Gaethje were among the lightweight contenders who were in attendance to witness Topuria’s latest victory. But at this point, doubting Topuria’s ability to navigate those assignments is difficult because thus far, he has not only avoided catching a loss, but he has handled his toughest tests to date with aplomb, beating the best opposition he’s faced with stunning ease.

Again, we’re pre-conditioned to accept that at some point everyone gets beat, and history tells us that that day will most likely come for Topuria at some point. However, he’s reached the point now where he deserves the benefit of the doubt in all those discussions, because there has yet to be any reason to question whether he can get the job done.

His current run of success — and these last three bouts in particular — stand as one of the greatest stretches ever put together by one athlete in the UFC. With the abundance of names for him to choose from and potentially defeat as he embarks on this lightweight journey, there is the possibility that we are in the early stages of one of the greatest runs of success ever assembled inside the Octagon.

Is that hyperbolic? Of course, but if there is a time for that kind of thinking and forecasting, it’s now.

Everyone thought he was crazy for vacating the featherweight title before knowing exactly what awaited him in the lightweight ranks. Now he sits atop the division, having reached the throne by knocking out one of its most accomplished and beloved champions, and has the cache to call his shots going forward.

He oozes charisma and is at the vanguard of the new generation in mixed martial arts, helping elevate the profile of the sport in Spain and become an international superstar the likes of which this sport has rarely seen.

And there is still a room for him to grow — as a fighter, as a champion, and as global figure that commands attention every time he’s set to compete.

Welcome to the Topuria Era.

Buckle up and let’s see where this goes.