Famed coach of champions like Luke Rockhold, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Cain Velasquez and Daniel Cormier, Coach Javier Mendez, or Coach Jav for short, sat down with Helen Yee of Helen Yee Sports.
Speaking with her, he was asked if he could see his pupil Islam Makhachev, the newly crowned lightweight champion as of October 22 of last year at UFC 280 (2022), after beating Charles Oliveira for the vacant title, if he would move up to challenge for the welterweight strap.
Seeking the prestigous double-champs status
This is something that Coach Javier Mendez has spoke about before, but no confirmation from Islam himself.
“I 100% see that if that is what Islam wants, yes”!
Repeating,
“If that’s what he wants to do yes”.
He told Helen Yee.
Randomly interjecting with Khabib Nurmagomedov’s double-champ aspirationsagainst Islam’s saying,
“Unlike Khabib, Khabib didn’t wanna do that, Khabibs goal was never to be welterweight or middleweight cause if Khabib wanted that he would have been that. But Islam, I have heard him, he has mentioned it to me that he wants to go to welterweight at some point, but he wants to clear out the division, he wants to defend the title more than anybody has..”
Realistically Coach Javier recognizes that this is far away because his fight against the featherweight champion, Alexander Volkanovski who is moving up to lightweight to challenge for the belt will be Islams first title defence telling Helen,
“I think 4 or 5 more title defenes and 170 is very entertaining.”
Islam Makhachev is currently on an 11 fight win streak ahead of his fight February 11th in Perth, Australia at UFC 284. He is currently 23-1-0 with 15 finishes (4 KO/TKO 11 Subs).
