UFC fans might not have the enjoyment of watching Islam Makhachev for much longer as his head coach has provided a surprising retirement timeline.
Islam Makhachev is widely regarded as the greatest UFC lightweight of all time after having broken the record for the most amount of title defenses in the division’s history, overtaking his own coach, Khabib Nurmagomedov.
After feeling like he’d achieved all he can achieve at 155lbs, earlier this year the Russian champion opted to vacate his lightweight title in pursuit of a welterweight title fight against Jack Della Maddalena.
Despite Makhachev being one of the most dominant grapplers in the sport, he has been advised to improve his wrestling and grappling skills ahead of his potential title fight against the Aussie.
Makhachev’s coach drops shock retirement timeline
Ahead of his move up to 170lbs, the Russian has teased that his time at lightweight may not be completely done.
Makhachev is still interested in a potential fight against Ilia Topuria, and if ‘El Matador’ wins the vacant lightweight title at UFC 317, it could set up a fight against Makhachev further down the line.
The 33-year-old has previously hinted at potentially attempting to become a three weight world champion by moving up to middleweight in the future.
However, now likely just a few months out from his welterweight title fight, Makhachev’s head coach Javier Mendez has dropped a shock retirement timeline, hinting that we may not have the pound-for-pound number one around for much longer.
“I think (Dricus) Du Plessis is another, I don’t know, I don’t really want to anticipate what could happen there because it’s a lot of what-ifs, you know,” Mendez told Submission Radio.
“Islam is actually gonna be 34 (years old) so it isn’t like he’s really gonna be around much longer I don’t think, based on how the Dagestani guys and their mentality on team Khabib is and Islam having enough money to do what he wants to do for the rest of his life.
“I’m anticipating (another few fights), I’m anticipating we’ll see him for maybe another three fights total, let’s see who’s in the works for that. Let’s say if we get by Della Maddalena, I don’t really wanna say we’re gonna get by him because this guy is a tough customer… It’s hard to overlook JDM,” Mendez continued.
Makhachev was forced to give up lightweight title according to teammate
Khabib Nurmagomedov still receives a lot of criticism to this day for his premature retirement in the sport, with Makhachev potentially going down the same route.
And although the 33-year-old wanted to reign over both the lightweight and welterweight division at once, according to his teammate Umar Nurmagomedov, he was forced to give up the lightweight strap by Hunter Campbell after an impromptu visit to Dagestan.