After months of being vocal about his dreams of chasing the welterweight belt, Islam Makhachev finally gets his shot, but many say he is dodging a fight with featherweight champ Ilia Topuria.
Topuria recently moved up to lightweight and had plans of facing lightweight champ Makhachev, but the matchup may never come to fruition as Makhachev is set to move up to welterweight. Although Makhachev has always been vocal about his desire to move, UFC analysts and fans have criticized and accused him of ducking a fight with Topuria. But UFC veteran Matt Brown dismissed these claims.
On the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, Brown shut down these claims as unfounded.
“I’m very surprised people are saying that,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “That’s a very silly thing to say. Islam ducking someone that sentence just doesn’t make sense, those words. I just don’t see that at all.
“As a matter of fact, Jack Della Maddalena is sort of a bigger version of Ilia in some respects. Great boxers with good power that’s kind of their forte. It seems kind of counterintuitive to move up a weight class to fight a great boxer with power to duck a smaller guy that’s a great boxer with power.”
“Those two words just don’t go together, Islam and ducking,” Brown said. “It doesn’t add up in any sense of the word. There are certainly situations of guys ‘ducking,’ but you kind of have to define what ducking is, too. Are they going out of their way specifically to not fight a guy? Islam’s going for a bigger opportunity. I don’t think that’s ducking in any definition of the word that you can muster up.
“There’s also the business side when people talk about this ducking stuff. There’s the business aspect of it. That’s just the redneck fans talking or the Reddit fans, too. People like to say all kinds of things and make it more dramatic than it actually is. Islam, I don’t see a single ounce of ducking in him anywhere. I think he would fight at 185 or 205 [pounds] if the opportunity is there.”
Brown says Makhachev is taking a huge risk by moving up to face the current champ, Jack Della Maddalena. He believes Makhachev isn’t taking the easy way out or ducking Topuria, as a fight with Maddalena—who has spent more time in the welterweight division—is sure to be more difficult and a tougher matchup than a fight with Topuria, who is still new to the lightweight division.
“Just a bigger, stronger [opponent]—as a matter of fact, I would say Jack is even more technical than Ilia on the feet,” Brown said. “Ilia, pound-for-pound, I would argue has more power, but I would say Jack probably has more technique.
“So it’s not a safer fight in any way at all. It’s a very odd thing to say he’s ducking a smaller boxer to fight a bigger boxer.”
Makhachev already holds the record for the most title defenses in UFC lightweight history, with four in a row, which actually surpasses his coach Khabib Nurmagomedov, who defended his belt three times.
By moving up to welterweight and potentially capturing a second title, Makhachev would join a very exclusive club—but perhaps more importantly, he would also have the chance to defend that belt as well.
“If Islam is able to stay on top of that division, that’s going to be epic,” Brown said. “We’ve already had the conversation, is he greater than Khabib? He goes up and beats Jack, that kind of solidifies it, right? Hypothetically, say he wins four fights at welterweight at what point does he start being the greatest ever? I think it’s a very doable thing for Islam, which is what makes it really interesting, him going up a weight class.
“Because it’s one thing to have another four or five or whatever [wins] in your own division, but you move up, and say he defends his title another four times we talk about the amount of killers in that division. They’re not going to be four easy fights. It’s not going to be four guys coming up from 155 or anything. There’s more than enough in line there. That makes for a fascinating vision for Islam.”
