Islam Makhachev Doubts Conor McGregor Will Earn a Lightweight Title Shot

Islam Makhachev doesn’t see Conor McGregor earning himself a legitimate title shot upon his return.

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight and featherweight titleholder McGregor (22-6) has been out of action since 2021, nursing a broken leg he suffered in his trilogy clash against Dustin Poirier. The Irish star recently made a return to the UFC’s drug-testing pool after months of back-and-forth with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which would make his return possible next April.

Despite having dropped three of his last four, McGregor has remained a popular callout for elite lightweight contenders, including former champ Charles Oliveira. However, current lightweight champ Makhachev (25-1) isn’t interested in fighting McGregor unless “Notorious” deserves a title shot, which he doubts will happen.

Makhachev believes the climb up the rankings will not be easy for McGregor, who is currently expected to fight Michael Chandler on his Octagon return. The 32-year-old said in a recent interview uploaded to the Instagram channel za.khabiba:

“If he deserves it, then yes. If he deserves it, he will come back, will win 3-4 fights. And in general, if the UFC leadership offers, I will not miss the fight definitely because I don’t think he deserves it. I don’t even think he deserves it because I don’t believe that he will come back to the winning streak or be able to beat the real contenders and become the number one contender.”

Talks of a potential fight against McGregor came up while Makhachev was discussing Francis Ngannou’s near-upset boxing match against Tyson Fury in Riyadh. According to Makhachev, Fury showed boxers in a bad light while Ngannou went on show the true potential of a MMA fighter’s switch to the sweet science. He said:

“Why not? I would be happy to try. In the last fight Ngannou showed what level a professional fighter can reach by switching to boxing. A lot of people say, that Fury wasn’t ready. But it was a fight. Who cares who was ready…Fury showed boxing in a bad face. And now the conversations of boxers and fighters are relevant.”