Islam Makhachev is ‘almost certain’ to be fighting for the welterweight world title later this year, according to the division’s current champion.
Jack Della Maddalena just dethroned Makhachev’s friend Belal Muhammad in the main event of UFC 315 in Montreal, and instantly invited callouts from the Russian. Since then, Makhachev has given up his lightweight belt and made it clear he is pursuing gold at 170lb.
Now, the Australian has once again seemed to confirm that he is going to make his first defense against the former champion. Makhachev has already set records for the most lightweight title defenses in the division, and now moves up to make further history.
- Who is Islam Makhachev? Step inside the life of the pound-for-pound best fighter on the planet
Jack Della Maddalena all but confirms Islam Makhachev is his next fight
In a recent appearance on the Back Chat Studios podcast, Jack Della Maddalena was asked about his future plans now that he is UFC champion. While he couldn’t list a date yet, he seemed pretty confident that Islam Makhachev would be his next fight, and noted that he was excited to take such a challenge.
“It’s going to be Makhachev, I’m almost certain which is good because I can get it back for Volk,” he declared when asked who was next, harkening back to the two times his fellow Australian Alexander Volkanovski tried to dethrone the Russian.
“Don’t know where at this point, but it will be unreal… I don’t know when it will be but I think Islam is the match and that’s what they [the UFC] want to do. He had a good run at lightweight, he’s keen to try and capture a second belt so that’s the fight they’re keen to make.
“Where it will happen, I’m not sure. The UFC are coming here [Perth] but I think it’s just going to be a fight night. I don’t know where they’ll go with that but we’ll see what happens.”
Islam Makhachev vacated lightweight belt to move to welterweight
It was never the official guarantee, but it ended up happening that the result of Della Maddalena and Muhammad’s clash decided the fate of the lightweight division. Ilia Topuria had already opted to move up from featherweight, seemingly in pursuit of Makhachev.
However, the Russian felt that after two defences against Volkanovski he had faced enough fighters making their way up. As a result, Topuria vacated his 145lb belt, and will now take on former champion Charles Oliveira in the main event of UFC 317 on International Fight Week.
Dana White announced all of this news in an Instagram live stream earlier this month, telling fans: “Current lightweight champion Islam Makhachev is going to move up to the welterweight division to face Jack Della Maddalena.
“What do we all love about Islam? If he had moved up to fight Belal he was a 5/1 favorite. Moving up to fight Jack the oddsmakers have this fight at even. This guy is a beast, this fight is the f—ing best.
Jack is coming off a bunch of damage in that fight so he’s accepted the fight I’ll let you guys know when I pick a time and date but that fight is definitely happening.”