With Belal Muhammad now reigning as the welterweight champion and his next challenger already lined up for the first quarter of 2025, it doesn’t look like Islam Makhachev will be making the jump to 170-pounds anytime soon. The pound-for-pound number one has spoken about wanting to challenge himself up a weight class many times.
Having fought and defeated Alexander Volkanovski, who was the featherweight champion at the time, on two occasions, Makhachev wanted his opportunity to try and win a second belt. Instead, he’s now gearing up for a rematch with Arman Tsarukyan in the near future.
One fighter that was very outspoken about the idea of Makhachev moving up was the former interim welterweight champion, Colby Covington. Given his trash talking public persona, a fight between him and the lightweight king would’ve been a huge fight.
He recently criticized Makhachev for going back on his plans during a recent interview with Submission Radio where he accused the champion, and Khabib Nurmagomedov, of being weight bullies who don’t commit to anything they say.
“Not really, you know. We saw the same thing with Khabib. He talked a big game his whole career, ‘Oh I’m going to go to 170, I’m going to stop cutting all this weight,’ because both those guys are legitimately cutting chromosomes off their bodies. Those guys are huge lightweights. I mean they’re bigger than me and I’m a weight class up so those guys are walking around at 190 plus, probably closer to 200. So, you know, they’re just weight bullies and that’s what they do best.
“They talk a big game like they’re going to come up to welterweight but they’ve never actually done it so if he wanted to come up and look for big fights, look no further than me. USA versus Russia, this is the biggest fight you could possibly get. I mean it’s a mega blockbuster fight but I think Islam’s all talk just like Khabib. They’re never actually going to come up to welterweight, they’re just going to stay at lightweight and throw stones from the lightweight division.”
