I watched a recent embedded for UFC 308 where he shook hands with Volk and then told the camera “it’s good to see Volk… it’s always respect. Always business, never personal”. That was cool.
I think theres a fine line between confidence/self belief, which helps, and delusion, which can cause complacency and an inability to reflect on your shortcomings so you can fix them.
So far we havent really seen Ilia put in a position where we can find out which one his is.
Tell you what though, if he actually does beat up and even stop Max, it’ll be pretty crazy. Could see a KO win over Max elevating his star power very rapidly.