(Update: Islam Makhachev defeated Dustin Poirier at UFC 302 to defend his lightweight title. Read more here.)
BRICK TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Islam Makhachev blends in, in the scariest way possible.
On a crowded mat at Nick Catone MMA & Fitness, he hardly stands out amidst the world-class mass of mixed martial artists, many of whom — like Makhachev — hail from Dagestan, a republic in the southern tip of Russia that has produced many of the globe’s most feared fighters.
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Makhachev, along with a dozen other fighters on the mat, sports the region’s trademark look: a buzzed haircut, a shaggy beard and his ears cauliflowered from decades of wrestling.
He doesn’t carry the aura of one of his compatriots, Khabib Nurmagomedov, a champion turned coach who circles the mat barking out instructions.
Makhachev flows through Muay Thai clinch drills the same way as Usman and Umar Nurmagomedov, Khabib’s cousins. Usman is the Bellator lightweight champion and Umar is the next big thing in the UFC’s bantamweight division.
Far more zen than zealous as he approaches his third title defense, Makhachev hardly stands out as he speaks with a gentle high-pitched murmur in his non-native English.
Yet he is clear and blunt about why he’s here.
“I just have to fight,” he told The Athletic. “I have to beat everybody.”
Makhachev rose to the top of the UFC’s pound-for-pound ranking the old-fashioned way: by smashing his opponents rather than by asserting himself as a grandiose trash-talker.
It starts with his smothering grappling. Pure strikers hold little hope against his work in the clinch, and wrestlers look brutally outmatched on the mat against his jujitsu.
In recent years, his standup game has evolved from adequate to deadly.
“He’s this good. He’s as advertised. Dominance everywhere,” Makhachev’s manager Ali Abdelaziz said. “He can knock you out, he can submit you, he can take you down and smash you. He can make you just quit. And he’s getting better. Every fight he shows something new.”
Makhachev’s only career loss came in his second UFC fight, a bout that stands as one of the most baffling flash knockouts in MMA history. Makhachev was put out that evening by a right hook from southpaw Adriano Martins, a journeyman who never won another fight in the UFC.
Makhachev has bounced back to win 13 straight bouts (12 at lightweight and one at a catchweight).
Makhachev considered his first knockout, in 2018 against veteran powerpuncher Gleison Tibau, to be a team victory, thanks to Nurmagomedov, who faced Tibau six years earlier.
“When (Khabib) was cornering me, he told me ‘Try right jab, left hook’ and I did and it landed very good,” said Makhachev, who knocked Tibau out in less than a minute.
OUT OF NOWHERE!@MakhachevMMA opens up #UFC220 with a BANG! pic.twitter.com/gz3bS2lY6a
— UFC (@ufc) January 21, 2018
From the outside, mixed martial arts doesn’t seem like much of a team sport. There is no ball to pass, no timeouts for stretches of struggle.
But Makhachev’s American Kickboxing Academy teammates within Eagles MMA — an organization founded by Nurmagomedov and originally coached by his father, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov — operate far more like a family than a collection of loose individual parts.
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“When you have good team, everybody wins,” Makhachev said. “When you have good gym, good coaches, the No. 1 thing is the team. Who gives you advice, who push you, who make you better at the end of the day.”
With their similar looks, similar fight styles and the similar air of inevitability that follows them into the cage, many fans see Makhachev as just a junior version of Nurmagomedov.
But even at his peak, Nurmagomedov made it clear that Makhachev was no clone. He was to be bigger and better.
Nurmagomedov retired at the top of his game in 2020 following his third lightweight title defense, a promise he made to his mother, who asked him to stop fighting after Abdulmanap died earlier that year.
Before his death, Abdulmanap coached Makhachev, as well. He vowed that Makhachev would one day succeed Nurmagomedov as champion.
“Islam was one of his favorites, my father’s students and he really loved him like his son,” Nurmagomedov said after his father’s death.
In 2019, after Nurmagomedov defended his title against Dustin Poirier, the champion took the belt off his shoulder, placed it in front of Makhachev, said, “Future champ,” and walked away.
Three years later, Makhachev submitted Charles Oliveira to win the lightweight title. In the octagon that night, Khabib hoisted Makhachev on his shoulders.
“My belt for my coach, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov,” said Makhachev, the newly-minted champion. “Many years ago, he told me, ‘Just train hard and you going to be champion.’”
Nearly two years later, Makhachev is scheduled to defend his belt against Poirier.
A win would give Makhachev his 13th straight victory at lightweight, surpassing a division record co-owned by Nurmagomedov, and match his mentor’s lightweight record of three title defenses.
But Makhachev doesn’t have time to measure his accomplishments against Nurmagomedov’s.
“I never think about this. It doesn’t matter how, I will just defend my belt again,” Makhachev said.
“It’s not my goal to beat someone’s record.”
He has something more in mind.
Only four men or women have held belts in two different UFC divisions simultaneously.
Of those four, only two successfully defended both belts within their “champ-champ” reigns: Daniel Cormier and Amanda Nunes.
“If we’re talking about legacy, what I want, I want two belts,” Makhachev said. “I want two different division title defenses. It’s my goal and it’s going to be a big thing.”
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“I don’t fight for the money or other stuff. For my legacy, I need a second belt.”
To contend for a second belt, Makhachev needs to get through Poirier in June and then likely defeat Arman Tsarukyan for a second time to keep his current title, likely later in 2024. Tsarukyan earned his shot at the lightweight belt with a strong performance to defeat Oliveira.
Even the first task against Poirier is no small endeavor, though Makhachev is heavily favored to win.
MAKHACHEV vs POIRIER! #UFC302 is LIVE SATURDAY on @ESPNPlus PPV! pic.twitter.com/GJE5UhHxlP
— danawhite (@danawhite) May 30, 2024
In a career that has spanned over 15 years and nearly 40 professional fights, Poirier has been both a witness and a main player in the evolution of the UFC lightweight division.
Poirier’s first shot at undisputed lightweight gold came in 2019 against Nurmagomedov, and his match with Makhachev will mark the seventh different champion of the division he’s opposed.
“I’ve fought the best guys of my generation at 155 pounds,” Poirier said, adding: “I’ve fought everybody.”
But when it comes to his Eagles MMA competition, Poirier said “their mindset is different.”
Poirier came closest to dethroning Nurmagomedov. As he was being taken down the third round, Poirier attempted a guillotine, and for a second, the submission appeared to be sunk in as Nurmagomedov squirmed.
But 25 seconds later, Nurmagomedov wriggled free. A minute later, Poirier was tapping out to a rear-naked choke.
“Close doesn’t count in this game. I lost,” Poirier said. But as he prepared for Makhachev, Poirier said that loss helped him better understand the talent of his division’s greatest fighters.
After his shot at Makhachev’s belt on June 1, no one other than Poirier and Tibau can say they’ve spent more time in the cage with the best of Eagles MMA.
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“It’s helped me understand the levels of grappling,” Poirier said. “I’ve been doing jujitsu and wrestling for as long as I’ve been fighting, so I’ve seen a lot, but the way these guys… they’re techniques and weight distribution and their foot sweeps, a lot of small things that are very intricate that a lot of the outside people might not really see they’re doing in there.”
Few know more about the levels of the MMA game better than Catone, a former UFC fighter who opened the gym where Makhachev was training ahead of his date with Poirier.
In his 14-fight career, Catone shared the cage with UFC mainstays such as Mark Muñoz, Costas Philippou and Chris Camozzi. Since he became a gym owner, renowned fighters such as Frankie Edgar, Edson Barboza and Cody Garbrandt have used his center to prepare.
But there’s something distinctly different about the Eagles MMA fighters, he says.
“Right away you can tell the discipline these guys have. It’s not so much the flashy stuff, these guys are just very good. Just really the discipline and the techniques they drill over and over and over,” Catone said.
Since 2021, Makhachev has used that discipline to score finishes in six of his last seven fights. He out-grappled wrestler Drew Dober. He flattened boxer Bobby Green for a TKO. He choked out jujitsu black belt Oliveira and knocked out featherweight legend Alexander Volkanovski with a head kick.
He said tiring Poirier down and then adding another finish to his record book is the plan for his third title defense.
“Inside two rounds, three rounds, I will finish him. For sure. I will try to finish him from the beginning, from the first minute,” said Makhachev, the fulfiller of many a prophecy.
“When you finish your opponent, nobody talk. Everybody understand.”
(Top image: Sean Reilly/ The Athletic; Photos: Chris Unger / Zuffa LLC)
