​Ilia Topuria after losing to Justin Gaethje with his brother, Aleksandre Topuria | (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) Justin Gaethje nearly ended Ilia Topuria’s career.In June, Gaethje scored one of the upsets of the year, battering Ilia Topuria to a corner stoppage in the main event of UFC White. The aftermath was harsh for Topuria; not only did he suffer his first loss in MMA and the loss of the lightweight title, but he was also physically beaten up, with both orbital bones broken along with his nose and other injuries. But despite the loss and the injuries, “El Matador” tried to keep a positive outlook.“I never really cried, I never was really sad,” Topuria told One on One MMA. “It happened. It is what it is. I’m not gonna torture myself because of what happened. It was sad; it was a shitty situation. Just imagine, in one of the most important moments of my life, I had four broken bones. I had my two orbital bones broken, I had my nose broken, I had my foot broken.“So I was in front of the President of the United States, in front of a lot of people, in front of millions and millions of people behind the cameras, and I was almost blind. I couldn’t breathe [without] a lot of pain. It was a weird experience, but at the same time, I’m glad I had that experience, because it taught me that it doesn’t matter how hard life can punch you or treat you or whatever; life continues. You can let yourself live with the experience of the past and with all the things that happened to you, and you just have to keep going. That’s life. You don’t always win.”Officially, Topuria lost by fourth-round TKO after his brother stopped the bout between rounds, given Topuria’s inability to see, a decision that Topuria says ultimately saved his career.“Listen, in myself, me personally, I wouldn’t say, ‘Stop it,’ but I respect the decision that my brother took in that moment. I would do the same. Because I couldn’t see. I couldn’t open my eyes. In the second round — I don’t remember if it was in the second or third round — when the doctor came in and just asked me, ‘Can you see?’ I’m like, I can’t see. I’m sweating; I have my eye full of blood. I feel like I have thousands of crystals in my eye. So weird.“Listen, I dedicated my entire life to this sport. I saw many sparring sessions, many fights. I’ve done this for my entire life, but I never saw someone with two orbital bones broken, two bones broken, with his foot broken, in a fight. That was so weird, like, I remember the thoughts I had in the fight. Like, ‘Why, in one of the most important moments in my life, I can’t see, I can’t breathe, it’s so weird. And I have a guy in front of me that has everything but not good intentions. He wants to take my head off.’ It’s a weird place to be.”“100 percent. If he wouldn’t have stopped the fight, probably I wouldn’t be able to fight again in my life,” Topuria continued.“I’m so grateful wit