Islam Makhachev Reveals Why He Almost Threw In the Towel During His Teammate’s UFC Qatar Fight

As a professional fighter, Islam Makhachev hasn’t seen too many really tough days inside the octagon. However, as a cornerman, the newly crowned two-division champ actually went through a horrible night during this past weekend’s UFC Qatar. Images and videos and him sitting slouched by the Octagón with his head buried between his arms in disappointment went viral soon after. At first, the Dagestani legend’s teammate, Saygid Izagakhmaev, dropped a split decision to Nicolas Dalby. Following that rough outing, another star teammate, Tagir Ulanbekov, got completely dominated by Kyoji Horiguchi and was finished in round three. By the second loss, things got so bad that Makhachev himself wanted to step in and stop the fight.

So why did Ulanbekov get dominated by a former UFC fighter returning to the octagon after nine years? Well, it turns out there’s a clear reason behind Makhachev’s teammate’s disappointing loss. In an interview with Russian media outlets after arriving in Dagestan, Makhachev revealed that Tagir’s grueling weight cut to make flyweight ultimately became the reason for the loss.

He said, “It’s no secret that Tagir is actually older than me. And I saw his entire weight cut… No one had a tougher cut than he did. Even on fight day, I talked to him before and after the bout, telling him he shouldn’t be leaving so much energy in the weight cut. Yesterday, Tagir showed maybe only 50% of himself. He walked out there, and after the very first exchange, he was already swollen and couldn’t breathe.”