Forgot Makhachev also beat Barnaoui in just his 8th pro fight. Barnaoui is 11-2 since then and one of those losses was to Gamrot.
Finished five fighters to win the $1 Million ROAD 46-man GP and then beat the ROAD champ after that. Barnaoui’s only loss prior to fighting Makhachev was Kevin Lee.
At the moment Makhachev has wins over fighters ranked in the top 20/top 40 at WW, LW and FW.
22-1 in MMA and on a ten fight winning streak in UFC.
Even in the first fight of this ten fight win streak, Makhachev beat a LW who is now the #14 ranked fightmatrix FW in the world. In his 3rd fight of this win streak he KOed Tibau who was a top LW and who just recently beat Rory Macdonald up at WW.
Its not Makhachev’s fault Diaz is sitting out and up at WW taking L’s, Conor and Dariush are injured, RDA pulled out of their last fight injured, Chandler and Tony turned down fights with him etc…
This is the same thing we saw when Charles was destroying lesser ranked fighters and the “names” the casual fans knew did not want to fight him. Only Kevin Lee was willing to take the fight.
Makhachev vs Oliveira is the only title fight that makes sense.
I disagree. His opponent pulled out of the #1 contender fight and the week of the fight. Not his fault. Not his fault Chandler and Tony would not take the #1 contender fight on short notice either.
We can agree to disagree. That is how it works. There are no rules in UFC matchups, there is no tournament structure. They make the fights they want to make. No fighter has ever had to go 10-0 and not get a title shot. Even Edwards is getting his shot after going 9-0-0-1 while coming off a Nate Diaz win, a fighter who has no real WW wins in the modern UFC.
We just agree to disagree. I support Islam getting the next title shot.
Islam had his chance to step in vs. RDA and secure the title shot. He was even the first to bring it up and then still refused to take the fight. Plus it’s the entertainment business. Boring fighters always take the long road. Without any ranked wins, he’s lucky to only need one more win instead of two.
So Islam need to be the only fighter in the UFC to take five fights in 11 months and the 5th fight on a weeks notice to secure his shot?
Without any ranked wins? Wrong.
He beat Hooker when Hooker was #6. He beat Moises when Moises was #14. He also beat Tsarukyan who is now ranked #11 and he has beat Dober who was once ranked 15.
Chandler got a title shot off a Hooker win just ten months before Makhachev beat him.
11-15 is not title shot territory. That’s breaking into contention territory. Beating a couple of opponents in the top 10 or one in the top 5 is title shot territory. (And whoever had Hooker ranked #6 at that point was smoking something.)
But still, as we understand it, Islam was getting his title shot after he beat Bobby Green. He only lost it after he challenged RDA and then refused to fight him. That was his own choice.
Oliveira said he’s out until at least December anyway. That’s plenty of time for Islam to win another one and still get the next shot, so what’s the problem?
Nobody is scared. Even Charles fans think this is a great fight. Word is Charles is out til December, nothing wrong with Islam getting his first top five win in the mean time. It would take away all doubt from those who look at the names of the fighters he’s beaten, nothing wrong with that either. Or if he and the ufc wants him to wait and fight Charles, then great, nothing wrong with that either…it’s a great fight. Say hi to Overeem for me
Charles isn’t scared to fight, he’s scared to lose. He’s waiting until December in hopes of getting a money fight so he doesn’t have to fight Islam before losing his opportunity at said money fight.
Now 10 years since 7-0 Makhachev fought 8-1 Barnaoui here we are.
Makhachev is champ and has a 12-0 streak with the last two wins coming over two UFC champs with impressive streaks themselves. In his next fight he attempts to tie Khabib’s record of 13 UFC LW wins in a row.
Barnaoui has his own 8-0 win streak going and he is in the Bellator LW GP and fights former champ Primus in May in the opening round (Outlaw is out). If he beats Primus, to get to the finals and have a chance to win the GP, Barnaoui has to beat the current LW champ and Makhachev’s training partner Usman Nurmagomedov or former UFC champ Bendo in the semis.
Personally, this LW tournament is on paper my favorite thing Bellator has ever done, hopefully it delivers.
Their 16 man FW tourny had a lot of fun fights and good fighters and started really fast with four fights one night and then the other four two weeks later but then it slowed down like crazy and got even more fucked because of the lockdowns and delay of the final. The fights themselves were good but just the pace of how long it took ruined it.
