Islam
Makhachev doesn’t see Conor
McGregor earning himself a legitimate title shot upon his
return.
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Former
Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight and featherweight
titleholder McGregor (22-6) has been out of action since 2021,
nursing a broken leg he suffered in his trilogy clash against
Dustin
Poirier. The Irish star recently made a return to the UFC’s
drug-testing pool after months of back-and-forth with the United
States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which would make his return
possible next April.
Despite having dropped three of his last four, McGregor has
remained a popular callout for elite lightweight contenders,
including former champ Charles
Oliveira. However, current lightweight champ Makhachev (25-1)
isn’t interested in fighting McGregor unless “Notorious” deserves a
title shot, which he doubts will happen.
Makhachev believes the climb up the rankings will not be easy for
McGregor, who is currently expected to fight Michael
Chandler on his Octagon return. The 32-year-old said in a recent interview uploaded
to the Instagram channel za.khabiba:
“If he deserves it, then yes. If he deserves it, he will come back,
will win 3-4 fights. And in general, if the UFC leadership offers,
I will not miss the fight definitely because I don’t think he
deserves it. I don’t even think he deserves it because I don’t
believe that he will come back to the winning streak or be able to
beat the real contenders and become the number one contender.”
Talks of a potential fight against McGregor came up while Makhachev
was discussing Francis
Ngannou’s near-upset boxing match against Tyson Fury
in Riyadh. According to Makhachev, Fury showed boxers in a bad
light while Ngannou went on show the true potential of a MMA
fighter’s switch to the sweet science. He said:
“Why not? I would be happy to try. In the last fight Ngannou showed
what level a professional fighter can reach by switching to boxing.
A lot of people say, that Fury wasn’t ready. But it was a fight.
Who cares who was ready…Fury showed boxing in a bad face. And now
the conversations of boxers and fighters are relevant.”