Islam Makhachev will have been happy to see Belal Muhammad become the welterweight champion at UFC 304 after the training they have done together in the past.
However, there is a sense that this result messed with the future plans of the lightweight champion.
Had Leon Edwards defeated Muhammad and secured his third title defense, Makhachev would have been high on the list of his potential challengers having laid out his ambition to become a two-weight world champion in the near future.
He now finds himself in a similar situation as to the one Kamaru Usman had during his welterweight title reign where he wanted a second belt but a friend of his, Israel Adesanya in Usman’s case, is the champion of the weight class above.
Just like how Usman briefly flirted with the idea of skipping over Adesanya’s division to jump up two weight classes instead, Makhachev has mentioned competing at middleweight.
Javier Mendez Gives His Take On Islam Makhachev Fighting At Middleweight
Though the idea was brushed off by the current middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis, maybe there is a future where Makhachev moves from 155 to 185.
He still has contenders to face in his own division and is set to be out for a bit longer due to a recently disclosed hand injury but the lightweight king has big ambitions.
In an interview with Submission Radio, his coach Javier Mendez spoke about what this would mean for Makhachev, revealing that whilst nothing serious has taken place, they have spoken about the idea.
“Islam said that middleweight would be kind of something but he’d have to put on some muscle so this is not just me, this is Islam thinking the same thing that yeah if it did ever come through, so it’s really not ideally something that we’re really looking at but it was something that was discussed but he’d have to put on some size if that was ever to happen.”
Mendez went on to say that whilst it would obviously be a tough and unheard of task to accomplish, he can understand why Makhachev would want to do it because it would define his legacy.
“If he was able to pull something like that off, if that ever was materialized and he did pull it off, that would put him in the top three pound-for-pound of all time.”
Read also: Belal Muhammad: There’s ‘Turmoil’ Between Leon Edwards & Coach After UFC 304 Loss
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