{"id":435069,"date":"2026-01-26T21:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T21:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/435069\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T21:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T21:28:07","slug":"paramount-promotes-islam-vs-usman-fans-have-other-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/435069\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount Promotes Islam Vs Usman, Fans Have Other Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Like the backstage face off between former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and current 170-pound titleholder Islam Makhachev, who are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-events-ppv\/402074\/kamaru-usman-responds-islam-blockbuster-callout-ufc-322-sells-itself\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">campaigning for a headlining title fight<\/a> at some point later this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Giving Usman the next 170-pound title shot would require the promotion to overlook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/latest-news\/413573\/michael-morales-expects-jdm-matchup-this-summer-after-islam-makhachev-turned-down-ufc-324-title-fight\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">more deserving candidates<\/a>, which is probably why fans are filling the Instagram comments with GIFs of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-mma-rankings\/410294\/red-hot-manel-kape-makes-waves-in-flyweight-contender-pool-following-ufc-vegas-112-rankings-update\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">No. 2-ranked<\/a> title contender, Shavkat Rakhmonov.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201dMaybe Islam is looking for a more suitable, more convenient opponent,\u201d the undefeated Rakhmonov previously told <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/arielhelwani\/status\/1993387518650405107?s=12\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ariel Helwani<\/a>. \u201cI believe I\u2019m the most inconvenient, hardest fight for him in the division. I\u2019m undefeated for a reason. Whatever the UFC decides, I believe he\u2019ll accept. Of course, I would prefer to fight for the title next, but I think this timeline isn\u2019t going to work for Islam \u2014 February or March. He will probably defend his belt in April or May. If I have to fight before getting a title shot, I have no problem with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like the backstage face off between former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and current 170-pound titleholder Islam Makhachev, who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,153471,139445,702,4454],"class_list":["post-435069","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-324","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-news","tag-upcoming-ufc-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435069","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=435069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}