{"id":244285,"date":"2025-10-27T14:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T14:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/244285\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T14:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T14:42:08","slug":"islam-makhachev-if-he-wins-title-at-ufc-322-eyes-ilia-topuria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/244285\/","title":{"rendered":"Islam Makhachev, if he wins title at UFC 322, eyes Ilia Topuria"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Brett OkamotoOct 28, 2025, 01:14 AM<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Brett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN since 2010. He has covered all of the biggest events in combat sports during that time, including in-depth interviews and features with names such as Dana White, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Georges St-Pierre. He was also a producer on the 30 for 30 film: “Chuck and Tito,” which looked back at the careers and rivalry of Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. He lives in Las Vegas, and is an avid, below-average golfer in his spare time.<\/p>\n

Former UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev<\/a> is focused on his upcoming move to welterweight, but he hasn’t forgotten about Ilia Topuria<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Makhachev (27-1) will challenge Jack Della Maddalena<\/a> (18-2) for the welterweight championship at UFC 322<\/a> on Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden. In anticipation of the move, Makhachev vacated his 155-pound lightweight belt in May. Topuria (17-0), the UFC’s former featherweight champion, became Makhachev’s successor in June, when he knocked out Charles Oliveira<\/a> for the title.<\/p>\n

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Topuria and Makhachev are widely considered the top two pound-for-pound fighters<\/a> in the world, and Topuria has said he will move up in weight again to face Makhachev at the 170-pound limit if he wins — a scenario Makhachev says he would welcome, particularly at the UFC’s historic event at the White House next summer.<\/p>\n

“I saw the [Oliveira] fight; he’s good,” Makhachev told ESPN. “I have a good fight now and I know [Topuria] is going to fight soon and we’ll see what’s gonna happen. He wants to fight at the White House, and I also want to be there. I know the UFC wants to do some big fight in the White House. Which fight is going to be bigger than this?”<\/p>\n

The UFC has not announced any fights for the much-anticipated card, which President Donald Trump has said will take place on June 14<\/a>. Topuria is unbooked as of now, but he is expected to defend his lightweight belt at least one more time before any potential move up in class.<\/p>\n

Makhachev defended his title four times before dropping it for a move to welterweight. He said the weight cut to lightweight depleted him so much, he has yet to compete to his full ability in the UFC.<\/p>\n

“No one who cuts like [22 pounds], they never recover 100%, you know?,” Makhachev said. “I was still feeling [the effects] for the fight, maybe 70% or 60%, because it’s so hard to recover 30 hours [after cutting weight].”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brett OkamotoOct 28, 2025, 01:14 AM CloseBrett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-244285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}