Islam Makhachev stands as another reminder of how intensely competitive things are in the UFC lightweight division.
Entering 2020 on a six-fight winning streak and sporting an 18-1 record overall, the longtime teammate and training partner of Khabib Nurmagomedov was coming off a year where he earned a pair of quality victories over Arman Tsarukyan and Davi Ramos and was expected to make a push towards the Top 10 in the 155-pound ranks. But between COVID restrictions, an opponent testing positive for COVID, and a staph infection, Makhachev missed out on fights against Alexander Hernandez and Rafael Dos Anjos and went the entire year without stepping into the Octagon.
While he was relegated to the sidelines, business continued as usual in the talent-rich weight class, causing the 29-year-old to slip in the rankings and lose a great deal of the momentum and buzz he had built up during the course of his six-fight run of success.
This weekend, Makhachev finally returns to action, taking on Drew Dober in an outstanding main card pairing.
Because of their close relationship, Makhachev often gets compared to Nurmagomedov, but it’s an unfair comparison, both because the unbeaten lightweight superstar is a one-of-a-kind talent, but also because his protégé is a different type of fighter with his own impressive array of skills and abilities.
Makhachev is more athletic and more fluid than Nurmagomedov, who is more of a bully in terms of the way he grapples. His approach is more about timing, quickness, and flowing through scrambles when they occur, and he’s shown a little more sudden finishing ability as well, having earned first-round stoppages of Gleison Tibau and Kajan Johnson during his current string of victories. He’s a special talent who has yet to get a chance to show it against the upper echelon of the division, but this fight with Dober could be the opportunity he needs to break into that group in the second half of the year.
The 32-year-old Nebraska native earned a pair of impressive stoppage victories in 2020 to push his winning streak (and finishing streak) to three and give him six wins in his last seven starts. Now in his eighth year on the UFC roster, Dober profiles as a classic late bloomer — someone that showed flashes of potential but could never quite put it all together until he found the right team (Colorado’s Elevation Fight Team) and the right approach (pressure-based kickboxing), and now he’s on a nice little run.
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Missing an entire year is rough and last year was such an impressive 12-month stretch in the lightweight division that it created even more ground for Makhachev to make up as he returns to the Octagon this weekend.
But you don’t win six straight in one of the deepest, most competitive divisions in the sport by accident, and if he can pick up where he left off in 2019 and halt Dober’s three-fight winning streak on Saturday, Makhachev should find himself moving forward in the lightweight rankings and back in position to secure the quality assignments that escaped his clutches in 2020 later this year.
