Islam Makhachev’s long-time manager has revealed that his next fight is now set to take place in July.
It’s been several months since Islam Makhachev won the UFC welterweight title by defeating Jack Della Maddalena last November, and he hasn’t fought since then.
In the meantime, Makhachev has been called out by multiple contenders including Ian Machado Garry and Michael Morales. However, most fans were drawn towards talks of a potential super fight against Ilia Topuria.
However, those plans never materialised, with Dana White later saying that an ongoing hand injury had kept Makhachev on the sidelines.
July return confirmed for Makhachev, says manager
Despite White’s comments about the Russian champion being sidelined, Makhachev shared training clips on social media earlier this week, showing him working on the heavy bag.
Ali Abdelaziz has since confirmed that Makhachev will be back in action in July, with the timing expected to align with International Fight Week.
“Islam got offered a different fight at welterweight to be the main event and Islam said, ‘Hey, let’s do this in July’,” Abdelaziz told TMZ.
“He had some stuff going on, you know, Dana spoke about it, he had some stuff going on but I can tell you this, if (the Topuria) fight was offered in June and Islam even only had one leg he would’ve took the fight.
While nothing has been made official yet, early signs point to Ian Machado Garry as his likely opponent. Garry is currently ranked second in the division and has been vocal about wanting a title shot.{{/p}}
Ali Abdelaziz says UFC asked Ilia Topuria to give up lightweight belt to face Islam Makhachev
Even with Makhachev’s next fight appearing to be just around the corner, there’s still a lot of interest in seeing him take on Topuria.
According to Abdelaziz, though, the UFC informed Topuria that he’d need to vacate his lightweight title if he wanted the bout against the welterweight champion.
“Does Ilia really want it? Because if he wants it two things have to happen, he has to vacate his lightweight title, I don’t think he wanted to do that and I don’t blame him, he just won it. And he wanted to be paid a lot of money.
“I cannot knock him down for (wanting a lot of money) but also, I can say certain kind of numbers to turn the UFC off.”
Read more: