Islam Makhachev Considers Boxing Match Against Conor McGregor
Islam Makhachev walked out of UFC 330 with his welterweight title intact and a 17th straight win on his record. He didn’t walk out unscathed.
The champion has since gone through multiple MRI scans and is now staring down a different kind of opponent: lingering spinal issues that will shape his immediate future far more than any name in the rankings. Carlos Prates, Michael Morales and the rest of the chasing pack will have to wait their turn.
While his body heals, the Dagestani is already weighing up a challenge that sits far outside the familiar geometry of the Octagon — and deep inside boxing’s money-soaked circus.
A potential showdown with Conor McGregor.
A Saudi pitch and a left-field idea
The seed was planted in August, at the Zuffa 9 boxing event, where Turki Alalshikh, the Saudi power broker who has turned Riyadh into combat sports’ new playground, floated the idea directly to Makhachev. Alalshikh even put McGregor on a video call, a brief crossing of worlds that instantly set the rumor mill humming.
This wasn’t a throwaway fantasy from Makhachev’s side. He has since doubled down on the possibility, speaking with a calm certainty about how his striking has matured and how little he cares about chasing some historic payday just for the spectacle.
The champion laid out his thinking in an interview with Ushatayka, where the conversation turned to a pure boxing match against McGregor — not a hybrid, not an exhibition, but the Irishman’s preferred playground.
Respect for the left hand, doubt about the gas tank
Asked how dangerous McGregor would be in a ring, especially after his recent ACL and meniscus surgery and a string of injury setbacks, Makhachev didn’t dismiss him outright.
“Well, if I say he's not dangerous at all, it would be wrong,” he said. “Yes, maybe he's dangerous in the first round, but after that I don't think he has any chance."
That line cuts to the heart of the matchup. McGregor, even past his peak, still carries the kind of first-round threat that can change careers in a heartbeat. The timing, the left hand, the sense of occasion — all still there, at least in flashes.
But Makhachev sees the same thing many have seen in recent years: a fighter whose early fire no longer stretches across a full contest, whose conditioning and durability no longer match the aura of his prime.
Money on the table, but not the driver
When the interviewer pushed the conversation toward money — seven or eight figures, the usual language when McGregor’s name enters a boxing ring — Makhachev stayed measured.
“I don't know. When it comes to boxing, they pay very good money,” he said, acknowledging the obvious without turning it into his main motivation.
Then he sharpened the point.
“I don't know. Honestly, regardless of the purse I'd box. Specifically against Conor, yes.”
For a modern champion, that is a rare stance. Most stars only cross into boxing when the numbers are so obscene they warp the sport. Makhachev is effectively saying he’d do it for the fight itself — the test, the stage, the chance to walk into McGregor’s old world and try to dismantle him there.
McGregor’s shadow and Makhachev’s rise
McGregor is no longer the force who terrorized featherweights and lit up lightweight. He’s coming off a brutal ACL and meniscus tear suffered in his comeback at UFC 329, another painful chapter in a body that has absorbed years of damage, layoffs, and surgeries.
Yet his name still carries a charge. He remains one of the most recognizable strikers in combat sports, and he’s already shown he can survive in a boxing ring, going 10 rounds with Floyd Mayweather back in 2017. That night didn’t end in glory, but it did prove McGregor could at least operate under boxing rules against the greatest technician of his generation.
That was nearly a decade ago. Since then, McGregor’s career has been defined more by inactivity and injuries than by championship-level performances.
Makhachev, by contrast, has moved in the opposite direction. Once seen purely as a suffocating grappler in the Khabib Nurmagomedov mold, he has steadily rounded out his stand-up game, adding sharp counters, improved timing, and a growing comfort in exchanges that used to be mere pathways to the clinch.
He speaks now like a man who trusts his hands as much as his takedowns.
A long shot that won’t go away
On paper, the obstacles are obvious. Different promotions, different priorities, different stages of their careers. McGregor is trying to claw his way back from serious injury. Makhachev is nursing spinal issues and staring down a queue of legitimate UFC contenders.
A boxing match between them still feels distant, maybe unlikely.
But the sport has entered an era where unlikely doesn’t mean impossible. If Turki Alalshikh decides this is the next blockbuster he wants to stage, and if McGregor sees one more chance to command the spotlight, the conversation will move quickly from “what if” to “when and where.”
For now, Makhachev recovers, McGregor rehabs, and the idea hangs in the air: the most dominant MMA champion of the moment stepping into a ring against the man who once bent the entire fight game around his will.
If that bell ever rings, it won’t just be about money. It will be about legacy, ego, and whether the new era is ready to walk straight into the old king’s chosen arena and shut the door behind him.
