Islam Makhachev has never shied away from a challenge and his “anyone, anywhere, anytime” mentality has actually been celebrated with one of his quotes on that subject memorialized on the wall at the UFC Performance Institute.
“What does this title represent?” Makhachev said back in 2023 after a last-minute change of opponents. “It means you’re the best in the world and if you’re the best in the world it doesn’t matter who is standing across from you. What could I say? No? Never. Let’s do this.”
So it’s tough to imagine the guy who said that is suddenly running away from a fight against former featherweight king Ilia Topuria, but that’s the narrative surrounding Makhachev after he vacated his lightweight belt to move up to 170 pounds with a chance to become a two-division champion when he faces Jack Della Maddalena later this year. Topuria loudly sounded off that Makhachev was ducking him, and he’s had analysts like Chael Sonnen backing up that claim, but UFC legend Matt Brown vehemently disagrees.
“I’m very surprised people are saying that,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “That’s a very silly thing to say. Islam ducking someone, that sentence just doesn’t make sense, those words. I just don’t see that at all.
“As a matter of fact, Jack Della Maddalena is sort of a bigger version of Ilia in some respects. Great boxers with good power. That’s kind of their forte, great boxers with good power. It seems kind of counterintuitive to move up a weight class to fight a great boxer with power to duck a smaller guy that’s a great boxer with power?”
Recently crowned as champion after beating Belal Muhammad at UFC 315, Della Maddalena is widely regarded as one of the better boxers in the sport with incredible knockout power in both hands. At 5-foot-11 tall with a 73-inch reach, Della Maddalena also dwarfs Topuria in size with the now former featherweight champion standing 5-foot-7 with a 69-inch reach.
Meanwhile, Makhachev slots in between them because he’s shorter with a smaller reach than Della Maddalena but much bigger than Topuria on both counts.
That’s another reason why Brown just doesn’t buy that Makhachev was supposedly avoiding a potential fire fight with Topuria to instead just run head first into an inferno to face Della Maddalena.
“Those two words just don’t go together — Islam and ducking,” Brown said. “It doesn’t add up in any sense of the word. There’s certainly situations of guys ‘ducking’ but you kind of have to define what ducking is, too. Are they going out of their way specifically to not fight a guy? Islam’s going for a bigger opportunity. I don’t think that’s ducking in any definition of the word that you can muster up.
“There’s also the business side when people talk about this ducking stuff. There’s the business aspect of it. That’s just the redneck fans talking or the Reddit fans, too … people like to say all kinds of things and make it more dramatic than it actually is. Islam, I don’t see a single ounce of ducking in him anywhere. I think he would fight at 185 or 205 [pounds] if the opportunity is there.”
Stylistically, Brown believes Makhachev is actually taking a bigger risk by moving to welterweight, which is where “The Immortal” spent his entire UFC career.
As good as Topuria has been since arriving in the UFC, weight classes exist for a reason and Brown can’t help but wonder if Della Maddalena isn’t the tougher matchup for Makhachev.
“Just a bigger, stronger, as a matter of fact I would say Jack is even more technical than Ilia on the feet,” Brown said. “Ilia, pound-for-pound, I would argue has more power but I would say Jack probably has more technique.
“So it’s not a safer fight in any way at all. It’s a very odd thing to say he’s ducking a smaller boxer to fight a bigger boxer.”
One final factor that Brown considered when addressing Makhachev’s decision to vacate his lightweight title to instead pursue welterweight gold comes down to his legacy.
Makhachev already holds the record for the most title defenses in UFC lightweight history with four in a row, which actually surpasses his coach Khabib Nurmaogmedov after he defended his belt three times.
By moving up to welterweight, and potentially capturing a second title, Makhachev would join a very exclusive club but perhaps more importantly is the chance to defend that belt as well.
“If Islam is able to stay on top of that division, that’s going to be epic,” Brown said. “We’ve already had the conversation is he greater than Khabib. He goes up and beats Jack, that kind of solidifies it right? Hypothetically, say he wins four fights at welterweight, at what point does he start being the greatest ever? I think it’s a very doable thing for Islam, which is what makes it really interesting him going up a weight class.
“Because it’s one thing to have another four or five or whatever [wins] in your own division but you move up, and say he defends his title another four times, we talk about the amount of killers in that division — they’re not going to be four easy fights. It’s not going to be four guys coming up from 155 or anything. There’s more than enough in line there. That makes for a fascinating vision for Islam.”
