UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev has been advised to skip over welterweight and move straight to middleweight, or risk fighting his friend.
After his fifth-round stoppage of Dustin Poirier at the Prudential Center in New Jersey, lightweight champion Islam Makhachev again teased that a move up to welterweight isn’t a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’.
Yet the lightweight champion has been told to skip 170lbs and move straight to middleweight, as the ‘friendship’ spanner gets thrown in the works.
Islam Makhachev vocal about fighting for second UFC belt
Even before his fifth-round submission victory over Dustin Poirier this weekend at UFC 302, lightweight champion Islam Makhachev was vocal about his desire to eventually move up a weight class to challenge for a second world title.
“Second belt, I don’t see some job [left] in my division, I’ve beat all of them and for me, it’s not making sense a rematch [with Tsarukyan] or something like this,” Makhachev told UFC reporters after his win in Newark.
“I want a new challenge, new belt – the welterweight belt is the thing that makes me wake up in the early morning and train every day; this is my dream.”
Islam Makhachev told he should skip welterweight and go to 185lbs
Whilst Makhachev has been vocal about potentially fighting Leon Edwards, there is a possibility that the dominant lightweight wrecking ball could shelve his champ-champ aspirations if his friend and teammate Belal Muhammad shocks the world and becomes UFC welterweight king in July.
Speaking to MMAFighting prior to UFC 302, Muhammad said that, should he defeat Edwards and capture UFC gold, he would refuse to accept any fight offer against Makhachev, and instead suggested he move up to middleweight.
“I would never fight him, 100 percent, but honestly, he could go up to 185 and beat [Dricus] du Plessis right now. I think he’s that good, really. I think he could go up there and be that two-division champ.
“Skip over 170 for a little bit, let me beat a couple of these younger guys, and then I’ll go up to 185… He has plenty of time… He’s dominating his fights. He’s winning easily. I think he’s going to continue on that path of just being a dominant champion.”
Yet Muhammad could very well be at odds with Makhachev regarding the welterweight skip, as the Dagestani wrestling machine would likely only turn down the opportunity to become double champion for a short period of time.
Or at least under the terms that he’d eventually move up regardless of whether Muhammad still retained the belt.
In an interview with Brett Okamoto via the ESPN MMA YouTube channel, Makhachev hinted that the door is open to fighting Muhammad, despite their close relationship, as the two share the same manager, Ali Abdelaziz.
“I don’t want to jump [the gun] and say something but I have team here, same manager who’s easy to talk and we will make some decisions – my goal is to be double champion, it’s my dream.
“Anything can happen, we’ve seen this many times but [maybe by] the end of the year, I will be [double champion],” said Makhachev.
Manager Ali Abdelaziz himself recently suggested that not only could Makhachev eventually beat middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis, but also light heavyweight king Alex Pereira.
Interestingly, Muhammad isn’t the only one convinced that Makhachev could shelve his champ-champ aspirations, should ‘Remember the Name’ earn the underdog victory at UFC 304 in July.
In fact, ‘Triple C’ Henry Cejudo recently touched on this in a YouTube video, stating “I don’t know if Belal Muhammad does win, and I know how Muslims are, will Islam Makachev go up and now fight Belal Muhammad when they’ve trained together?
“They’re both really good friends with Khabib and I know that they do have a brotherhood… Would he want that greed and go up and challenge him at 170 lbs?”
We’ll have a better idea about the potential path of Makhachev getting a shot at the welterweight title after UFC 304, when champion Leon Edwards takes on Muhammad from the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester, England.