Islam Makhachev isn’t entirely certain that he’ll be able to step into the Octagon and defend his UFC lightweight title again before the end of the year.
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Fans last saw the 32-year-old compete in June when he submitted Dustin Poirier in the fifth round of their main event bout at UFC 302, which marked the champion’s third successful title defense after his back-to-back victories over former UFC Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski.
The current plan for Makhachev’s next matchup looks to be a rematch with #1-ranked Arman Tsarukyan, but the UFC’s lightweight king recently indicated he’s still healing up from the fight with Poirier.
“After the fight, my fists hurt, a lot of things hurt,” Makhachev told Ushatayka (h/t @ChampRDS). “We’ll take time, everything is healing little by little. But my hand continued to bother me. An MRI recently confirmed that I have a partial ligament tear. Let’s see if I can recover. If not, I might even have to have surgery.”
Makhachev has been a regular fixture of UFC PPV events in Abu Dhabi in recent years, and while the 31-year-old is the promotion’s presumed first-choice to headline UFC 308 on October 28 he unfortunately can’t promise that he’ll be ready to fight again before the end of the year.
“It is questionable. We haven’t talked about the fight yet. I am doing rehabilitation every day now, and we’ll see how the hand goes…I really want to perform before the end of the year. I plan to, too. So far, I haven’t even thought about not performing. I want to come in shape, prepared, so that nothing bothers me. Before the last fight, there were also a lot of minor injuries, everything somehow accumulated. I want to give my body time to recover.”
The idea of a potential double-champ bid against Leon Edwards was a hot topic ahead of Makhachev’s last title defense against Poirier, but after Belal Muhammad upset Edwards to claim the welterweight title at UFC 304 last weekend those plans might have to be put on hold given that Muhammad and Makhachev have spent time training together alongside Khabib Nurmagomedov.
The UFC heads to Abu Dhabi this Saturday for a UFC Fight Night card headlined by Cory Sandhagen and Umar Nurmagomedov, but if Makhachev’s hand injury doesn’t require surgery the promotion will almost certainly try to book him as the headlining attraction when it returns there for UFC 308 in October.
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