Islam Makhachev vowed not to call out Conor McGregor after winning the UFC lightweight title, and he honoured that promise when he beat Charles Oliveira last night.
The Russian was crowned lightweight champion at UFC 280 after defeating Oliveira in the second round by submission, and immediately decided to call for a fight with Alexander Volkanovski - not McGregor. The featherweight champion is the No.1-ranked UFC fighter in the pound-for-pound rankings, and was willing to step in had either of last night's fighters pulled out.
Prior to his fight with Oliveira, Makhachev had insisted that he wouldn't be putting McGregor in the title picture, given that he is 1-3 in the division, and hasn't won at 155lb since his 2016 title fight with Eddie Alvarez. Instead he promised to give the shot to a legitimate contender such as Beneil Dariush, who defeated Mateusz Gamrot on the undercard last night.
"He come back and just tweeted you know, that's it," Makhachev said during an appearance on the Full Send podcast when discussing if he would face McGregor in the case of a victory. "He's always in the Twitter because people almost forget him, you know.
"And he tries to put something and he put today something, people are going to talk about him. But I don't believe he's going to come back. Every fighter tries to call him out after they win. I'm not going to call him after the fight because I want to fight with real fighters who deserve the title shot. Gamrot, Beneil, other guys."
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Khabib Nurmagomedov, the legendary former champion who vacated the belt in 2020 when he retired from the sport undefeated at 29-0, was in Makhachev's corner last night to help him to victory. And he also refused to engage in any talk of a McGregor title opportunity, instead deciding to initiate an in-cage face-off between Makhachev and Volkanovski.
"You know what is interesting?" Khabib asked during Makhachev's post-fight interview with Daniel Cormier. "Charles Oliveira is No.2 pound-for-pound, he finished Charles. Now it's our plan to fly all the way to Australia and fight in the pound-for-pound king's back yard, you know we are going to finish this guy, I am ready."
Volkanovski entered the octagon after Nurmagomedov's call-out, demanding that the fight bet made for the UFC's pay-per-view event that has just been announced for Perth next February. "Let's do it," Volkanovski told Cormier. "The lightweight championship on the line, the pound-for-pound No.1 on the line, let's do it!"
