Last year, Ilia Topuria went through probably one of the toughest personal phases since he became a star. After his ex-wife Giorgina Uzcategui Badell filed for divorce with charges of domestic and gender violence, the reigning 155 lbs champion took a year off from his professional career to deal with the matter. However, in early January 2026, ‘El Matador’ settled with Giorgina, ending the legal case. After going through that period, ‘El Matador’ seemed to have learned a big lesson.
Though the Georgian-Spaniard champ revealed that the divorce with his ex-wife taught him many things, the biggest lesson he learned from the entire saga was listening to his mother. According to Topuria, his mother had an intuition that things might not end well with Giorgina, which turned out to be true.
“I have had these conversations with the people closest to me and with everyone, and when people ask me what I have learned the most from this whole situation, it might make you laugh, but the biggest thing I have learned is to listen to my mother,” Topuria said in a recent interview with El Hormiguero. “Because mothers have an intuition and they see things we don’t.
When your mother tells you that something is not right, no matter how clear it seems to you, it’s not. I can remember very few times in my life when my mother told me, “That’s not the way,” and I didn’t listen. I have learned to listen to my mother. I love you, Mom,” he added.
When it comes to Ilia Topuria’s relationship with his mother, Inga Topuria, she has not only helped him while going through a divorce. The current lightweight champ credited her for influencing him to start martial arts. In fact, it was Topuria’s mother who noticed a man with cauliflower ears in Spain, who turned out to be Hamlet Perez, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner at Climent Club run by Augustin and Jorge Climent.
Later, both Topuria brothers started training under the Climent brothers and rose to great heights in MMA, with Ilia eventually becoming a champion in UFC under them. But after training for a decade, the Topuria brothers parted ways with the Alicante-based coaches. So, their journey shows that Ilia Topuria’s mother has always been an important pillar in his and his brother Alexandre’s lives.
Ilia Topuria on the biggest lesson he took from his divorce:
“It might make you laugh, but the biggest thing I’ve learned… is to listen to my mother. Because mothers have an intuition, and they see things we don’t.
When your mother tells you that something isn’t right, no… pic.twitter.com/8VgcwKptO0
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) April 9, 2026
Now, after revealing that listening to his mother helped him weather the difficult personal time, Ilia Topuria also disclosed how the divorce from Giorgina Uzcategui changed his life.
Ilia Topuria reveals how life changed after divorce
To be fair, ‘El Matador’ hasn’t revealed many details about when he actually married Giorgina. The champion had his first son, Hugo, in 2019 from a different relationship, and then his daughter, Giorginita, in 2024, with his now-estranged wife.
Addressing that, Topuria revealed that he felt strange coming to terms with the changes that the divorce brought, especially not seeing his daughter much.
“It’s strange, because honestly, everything changed overnight. It’s like you’re not aware of the things until you’re the one going through them. It changed a lot. At the same time, people who know me know that I’m someone who, when something is out of my control, I don’t dwell on the negative. I don’t live it cursing everything or asking why it happened to me. It’s like there are two ways to live it, right?
Either way, I have to go through it, so I can live it negatively or accept my reality and move forward, which is the only thing left for me and it’s the best way to handle it. Because you can’t let a situation like this let you down. Anyone who’s gone through it knows how hard it is when you’re used to waking up in the morning with your kids, seeing them, and suddenly everything changes. It’s tough, but in the end, you cannot forget who you are and also you have to know who you are not. So keep your head held high,” he added.
That said, with the legal case over, do you think Ilia Topuria will show an evolved form against Justin Gaethje at UFC White House?
