Joe Rogan has no doubts about Ilia Topuria 's mental strength and resilience , but expresses concern about the possibility of the Spaniard making a major mistake in his return to the octagon. Defeated by Justin Gaethje at UFC Casa Branca , 'El Matador' suffered a broken nose and two orbital fractures . In the Ultimate commentator's view, the injuries require an adequate recovery period before the fighter returns to action.
In a recent episode of his podcast, Rogan highlighted Topuria's mental strength and stated his belief that the Spaniard will be able to recover emotionally from the defeat. Despite this, he stressed that the amount of physical damage suffered in the fight against Gaethje also needs to be considered, mainly because only the athlete himself knows the true extent of the consequences of that confrontation.
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“He’s a very mentally strong guy, and I think he’ll recover well in that aspect. The problem is that there’s also the reality of how much damage he suffered, and only he knows how much he was really affected in that fight. That could also influence him, because there are only a few fights like that you can have in your career, and you have to be very careful about how you recover from them,” said Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan compares it to Alexander Volkanovski's early return.
Rogan also drew attention to the risk of an early return and cited Alexander Volkanovski as an example. The commentator recalled that the Australian faced Islam Makhachev in a rematch accepted with little preparation time and ended up being knocked out after receiving a head kick. Subsequently, Volkanovski returned to the octagon just four months later to face Topuria, something considered by Rogan to be an extremely risky decision.
“Many fighters, including great fighters, have made the mistake of coming back too soon. Volkanovski is one of the examples I always cite. He is arguably the greatest featherweight of all time. He is one of the most brilliant fighters in the sport. He accepted a last-minute rematch against Islam Makhachev and took a kick to the head. Then, I think just four months later, he faced Ilia, and that's insane. It's an absurd thing to do. He took a kick to the head, was knocked out, and four months later he was facing the most terrifying challenger he'd ever faced,” concluded the UFC commentator.
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