It has been fun to debate the many motivations and meanings to Islam Makhachev moving up to welterweight, but one thing is certain. The place he’s headed? It’s one of the toughest blocks we’ve ever seen. The 170-pound division is teeming with monsters. Experienced killers. Trigger-happy young guns. Dudes whose noses hang on their faces like war-torn apostrophes.
Surely fighting Ilia Topuria couldn’t be all that daunting. You don’t duck a bike rack fistfight to charge a battlefield. Perhaps it says it all that, where Islam’s heading, champion Jack Della Maddalena might be the safest option within a country mile.