“It would now be a competitive fight with Mayweather.” Makhachev – about the first car, Jon Jones and his words of 2021

Islam Makhachev On October 21, he defended the UFC lightweight championship belt, defeating Alex Volkanovski by knockout. On October 27, the Russian turned 32 years old. The ideal age for the greatest victories. On November 3, Islam arrived at the studio and…

— In 2021, after the fight with Drew Dober, you jokingly called out Floyd Mayweather. Mayweather is now 46 years old. He has already finished two exhibition matches with a draw. How do you think your fight would go now?

“It was definitely a joke at the time.” He just screamed. It would now be a competitive fight. Exactly with this Mayweather. I’m not saying that three or five years ago I could have given him a competitive fight, but now he’s in a big decline, I don’t think he trains much. And I’m at the top. Judging by the last fight between Ngannou and Fury, the MMA fighter can give a good fight to the best boxer in the world.

— He has already fought seven exhibition fights, his opponents were Logan Paul and MMA fighter Aaron Chalmers. Were you interested in watching these fights?

– No. I watched his fight with McGregor, but I didn’t watch any other exhibition fights.

— Now they are wondering if you should be in first place in the ranking of the best UFC fighters, regardless of weight categories. If we were to imagine that you and Jon Jones (#1 heavyweight champion) were comparable in size, how would you fight him?

“I would try to squeeze it and translate it.” He has good wrestling and good posture, but no one has really tested him on the field. And there are no such strands that could verify it. Cormier has a good ground game, but the Americans’ main mistake is that they know how to translate, but they don’t know how to hold. Our school is different in this way. In terms of control and access to appointments, our school is in first position.

“Vitor Belfort squeezed Jones’ arm in a painful grip and could have done it. How could you defeat him sooner than expected?

– The same stuffy one. For example, Volkanovski has a small neck, it’s embarrassing to strangle him. But with Jones, it would be the opposite.

— Who was the biggest opponent you faced in training?

— I fought with the ADCC champion in the category up to 93 kg, Yuri Simões (four-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion, three-time winner of ADCC tournaments. – “”). We fought him once. We agreed on a fight, I managed to do something with him. He said, “Give me the second one.” » We got up second. He said, “Give me the third.” » As a result, we fought four battles.

— Magomed Abdulkadirov told me that he managed to beat you by choke in 2012. This is probably your last defeat in competition?

– I think so. I first beat Muhammad on points in the North Caucasus Federal District. But I didn’t fight much at the time, there were gaps between fights. I came to Moscow, trained for a month at the Fortress club, relaxed a little and got lost.

— You had leverage in the fight against Kayan Johnson, and Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov told us in an interview that this was his original development. And how, during training, he discovered new techniques for himself and for you.

– Yes, when you are sitting on an opponent, tie both hands, the coach showed us this very often. Abdulmanap was not completely immersed in the training process to lead the lesson from warm-up to the end, but he came to training every time and showed us something new, something individual. It was the same with this technique.

— Shara Bullet said you hit Volkanovski with a very high quality high kick because it landed in the upper part of the head, above the arm block. Arman Tsarukyan’s coach said it was not the best technical move. Would you say this high kick is perfect?

“I would say it’s perfect in the sense that I shot it over the defense. The opponent was blocking, his hand was on his chin, but I hit the open window. It’s difficult to deal such a blow. You can hit it cleanly when the opponent doesn’t see it, but I shot through the block.

— You started with taekwondo. Have you won at least one competition there?

— No, I didn’t play it at all. This is my first sport where I simply learned to lift my legs. Then he moved to Ushu-Sanda and played there for four years. The south of Russia apparently won in the 48 or even 38 kg category.

— A few questions about your biography that don’t seem to have been asked. Who chose the name Islam?

– Father. I know my mother wanted to give me a different name. I don’t remember which one, but that was the story. And the father said: “Let’s call it Islam.” » And then my mother began to say: “The son’s name was Islam and Islam came to us. »

— As a child, do you remember your grandparents more on your mother’s side or your father’s side?

— On my father’s side, I don’t remember my grandfather; my father was 6 years old when my grandfather left. And my grandmother left early when I was little. Today I only have my grandmother on my mother’s side and my grandfather died about 10 years ago, but I remember him well. And there were other memories associated with my mother’s parents.

— In the Caucasus, women are not involved in men’s professional affairs. But, for example, do your mother and your wife know the names of your rivals?

– Very weak. Mom, I think, does not know the last name, does not remember it. And my wife, when Volkanovski was assigned to me, called me and said, “Are you going to fight that bald guy again?” She only knows it from the outside, and perhaps she has seen fragments of it. But in general, the fairer sex in my home is poorly supervised. My father knows the whole list.

— You don’t really show any rest. Where have you swum, besides the Caspian and Black Seas?

– Many places. When we were in America, in San Francisco, by the ocean. Someone said there were a lot of sharks there, but we soon figured it out.

— In San Jose, where you trained a lot, hockey goalkeeper Evgeniy Nabokov played and now works. Have you ever been to a hockey game and maybe talked to him?

— I remember Khabib spoke, we were invited to the match, apparently, when Ovechkin was playing. I couldn’t go, I had individual training. And Khabib attended the match, they met. I was at a hockey game when SKA was playing with someone in St. Petersburg. Big match. I went there, it was hot outside, I came in a T-shirt and my strongest memory is how very cold I was in hockey. And then I realized that if you go to hockey, you have to dress.

— Do you remember what your first car was and how you bought it?

— I had a Niva. She’s on social media. I lived in Khushet and it didn’t matter what I used, as long as it wasn’t on foot, because I had to take a minibus with two transfers to the university, to training. The Niva was the best car for me at that time. I bought it for a hundred thousand dollars, my brother helped me, and somehow they raised the money and bought it. I was 18-19 years old.

— You said you would travel to the fight between Colby Covington and Leon Edwards in the United States on December 16, where they will fight for the welterweight championship belt. Or maybe after the fight you will climb into the cage and call the winner, like Volkanovski entered your cage after the fight with Oliveira?

– I think there is such a chance. But management must be interested in the fight. We will speak with UFC management before the tournament, but I would not miss this opportunity.

Live broadcasts of mixed martial arts tournaments can be seen on and Match! Fighter”, as well as on the sites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.