{"id":952397,"date":"2026-10-30T22:16:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T22:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/952397\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T22:16:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T22:16:21","slug":"islam-makhachev-teases-nearing-retirement-my-next-fight-is-one-of-the-last-in-my-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/952397\/","title":{"rendered":"Islam Makhachev teases nearing retirement: \u2018My next fight is one of the last in my career\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Islam Makhachev says he won\u2019t be around much longer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Widely viewed as the top pound-for-pound fighter in MMA and one of the greatest of all time, Makhachev has nonetheless faced considerable backlash over the past few weeks after news broke that Makhachev will not be defending his UFC welterweight title until after Ramadan next year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Makhachev was rumored to be defending the title against Carlos Prates in January \u2014 something the champion called for after his successful title defense against Ian Machado Garry in August \u2014 but those plans fell through. Instead, Prates now faces Michael Morales for an interim belt, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/ufc\/517716\/dana-white-explains-why-interim-welterweight-title-being-introduced-with-islam-makhachev-still-champion\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">much to the consternation of UFC CEO Dana White<\/a> and many MMA fans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">On Friday, Makhachev seemingly responded to the backlash, posting a message to his social media that suggests that the welterweight champion is just about ready to hang up his gloves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g79 _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">My next fight is one of the last in my career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g79 _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">They say Prates is too dangerous for me and Morales is too good for me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g79 _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">So I want to face the best of them and prove to the world once again who is the best in world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">At 35 years old, Makhachev has accomplished just about everything there is to accomplish in MMA. He is one of only four fighters to ever win and defend titles in multiple UFC weight classes, and would become only the second fighter ever, and the first male fighter, to record multiple successful title defenses in multiple weight classes, should he defend his belt against the winner of the Prates vs. Morales fight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Prates and Morales fight each other in the co-main event of UFC 336 on Jan. 30 in Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Islam Makhachev says he won\u2019t be around much longer. Widely viewed as the top pound-for-pound fighter in MMA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":["post-952397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952397","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=952397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}