Is it a Mistake for Islam Makhachev to Move Up to Welterweight?

We are all familiar with the extremely dominant champion Islam Makhachev who has with no doubt earned himself a spot in the hall of fame, as finishing the likes of Charles Oliveira, Alexander Volkanovski, and Dustin Poirier has never been an easy feat.

But now, the decorated Lightweight champion has set his eyes on a new horizon, Welterweight. Islam believes that he is the man for the job and has said that he wants to fight for the Welterweight belt, and will not retire until he has it in his possession.

It’s not just Islam who is advocating to fight for the Welterweight belt, but even Dana White has given the “OK” for him to do so, making this no longer an “if” question, but rather, a “when” question.

But, even though it seems like everything is going smoothly with the weight class change there are still some issues with it. One for example is that the fighter holding the current Welterweight belt is Belal Muhammad. Belal is a close training partner and friend of Islam, the two also share the same manager (Ali Abdelaziz). Islam has said that he will not fight Belal and that he will instead see what happens in Belal’s next fight against Jack Della Maddalena.

If Belal wins, Islam will most likely stay in Lightweight for another fight or two, But if Jack wins, theres a very high chance that Islam will vacate the Lightweight belt and move up a weightclass to take him on.

So if Islam stays in Lightweight for a while longer, what are his options? Some names floating around as contenders are Charles Oliveira, Arman Tsarukyan, and of course Ilia Topuria. Some fans make the assumption that Islam is actually scared to fight Topuria and is trying to avoid the matchup by scaling up to Welterweight.

I personally don’t believe that this is true, as Islam has never had a problem facing other top contenders before. If anything I believe that the only reason Islam doesn’t want to fight Ilia is that he hasn’t proved himself at Lightweight yet, as he only has one Lightweight fight early in his career against Jai Herbert.

And if Islam does beat him, people will lable him as someone who has “only beaten Featherweights”, as he has beaten Alexander Volkanovski twice before.

Personally I’d love to see the fight, as they are both huge stars in the UFC and the fight would be absoloutely massive. And if Islam does decide to move up, don’t be surprised if he attains the belt with ease, as Islam is not a small guy by any means.