Ilia Topuria suffered a TKO loss to Justin Gaethje at UFC Freedom 250 on the White House South Lawn that left him a bloody mess. Now, his coach, Jesus Gallo, gives MMA fans an update on Topuria’s recovery process and injuries, including a timeline of Topuria’s next possible fight.
In a recent interview with Spanish-language sports outlet SerEbro EnLosDeportes on YouTube, Gallo shared that Topuria’s cosmetic injuries have already shown significant improvement.
Gallo told the interviewer, Jorge Ebro, that Topuria’s scars were healing, saying, “Day by day, he already looks like a completely different person.”
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Watch the full interview here:
“Obviously, he still feels discomfort,” Gallo stated. “Day by day, he already looks like a completely different person.”
Gallo shared that Topuria has the fortune of healing well from such devastating scarring, saying, “He looks like he wasn’t even in a fight, honestly. All the swelling in his face has gone down. Every type of bruising he had.”
“To the naked eye, you can see a person who has already recovered a lot, and it has been a week and two days,” he shared.
Topuria’s Injuries
Aside from the superficial damage, Topuria revealed via social media after the fight that he had lost vision, crediting Justin Gaethje for his accurate and damaging punching abilities:
“You took the sight from my right eye in the first round, and by the end of the second, from my left too,” Topuria wrote.
Per a medical report by a Spanish-language publication, MARCA, Topuria suffered two non-displaced fractures of both orbital bones.
Timeline for Return
While the nature of his injuries after the fight seemed serious, Gallo revealed that Topuria is still recovering well and gave Ebro an update on his return to training.
“What the doctor told us was that within six to eight weeks, it should heal properly, especially because there was no displaced fracture,” he said.
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Gallo added, “After that, for him to start wrestling again, to start doing things again, it’ll take a little while for it to really solidify there. I think we’re talking about at least two to three months, easily.”
He also gave a specific month for Topuria’s potential return, and hinted that the formerly undefeated MMA champion may even make a return before the end of the year.
“If you saw us in a rematch or another fight, it would be towards the end of the year, in December,” he mentioned.
Despite his optimistic news, Gallo stayed measured and let Ebro know that the timeline for Topuria’s return was not set in stone, saying, “Who knows? We’ll see.”