Indeed, it took six years and 10 consecutive victories to finally score Makhachev his first opportunity at gold. That\u2019s an unusually long streak before a title shot, but Makhachev was able to clear the final hurdle when he finished four straight opponents. Once he started stopping opponents, Makhachev could be denied no longer, and he\u2019s remained on top since first capturing a belt in 2022.<\/p>\n
Makhachev has moved on from the Lightweight division but still understands how the game is played. In a recent interview with Red Corner MMA<\/a>, Makhachev explained why he isn\u2019t surprised that top contender Arman Tsarukyan did not receive his shot at interim gold. Tsarukyan was passed over in favor of Justin Gaethje vs. Paddy Pimblett, who Makhachev believes are more appealing to western audiences and Paramount, the UFC\u2019s new broadcast partner.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I can see why Arman wasn\u2019t given a shot at the belt,\u201d Magomedov explained (via MMA Junkie<\/a>). \u201cThe UFC got new sponsorships with Paramount (broadcast deal), so they need Western audiences, Western fans.<\/p>\n \u201cGaethje is a seasoned veteran of the sport, who has a great background in this sport. He is also American. Fans love him and he has a big fanbase. Pimblett is an Englishman as far as I know. I haven\u2019t seen his fights, but he\u2019s got some great hype. So it\u2019s a fairly interesting matchup. Arman was given his chance, and the fact he missed it played a dirty joke on him.\u201d<\/p>\n Generally, UFC has prioritized spectacle over merit in recent years, and the promotion of Paddy Pimblett is no exception. It\u2019s interesting to consider that Paramount\u2019s hefty investment<\/a> could push the promotion even further in that direction, particularly since the company is accused of overpaying for UFC fights<\/a>. Likely, Paramount wants to see a positive return on sooner rather than later, which could influence matchmaking.<\/p>\n Either way, the Lightweight picture will continue to remain murky until we have a realistic estimate for Ilia Topuria\u2019s return. If he\u2019s gone for most of 2026, it\u2019s entirely possibly that Tsarukyan could face the Pimblett vs. Gaethje winner later in the year. Should Topuria be ready for the UFC White House event, well, it could be quite some time until Tsarukyan is back in the Octagon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indeed, it took six years and 10 consecutive victories to finally score Makhachev his first opportunity at gold.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,139445],"class_list":["post-377005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-on-paramount"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}