Paddy Pimblett doesn’t understand why Islam Makhachev was forced to vacate his lightweight title while Jon Jones still gets to parade around as the UFC’s heavyweight champion.
Earlier this month, Dana White announced that Makhachev was forgoing his 155-pound championship in a bid to move up and challenge Jack Della Maddalena for the promotion’s welterweight crown. The news didn’t come as much of a shock as White previously confirmed that Makhachev’s next fight all hinged on how things played out between Belal Muhammad and ‘JDM’ at UFC 315 in Montreal.
With Della Maddalena’s win over Muhammad, Makhachev will move up to fight him while Ilia Topuria and Charles Oliviera will battle it out at UFC 317 for the lightweight title he’s leaving behind.
Paddy Pimblett wants to see makhachev go for champ-champ status
Reacting to the news, Pimblett thinks Makhachev accomplished more than enough in the lightweight division to keep his belt and have a shot at becoming just the fifth champ-champ in UFC history.
Furthermore, ‘The Baddy’ believes that if Makhachev’s four title defenses in the last 27 months weren’t good enough to keep his gold, then Jon Jones shouldn’t be the heavyweight champion after notching just two fights in the same amount of time.
“I don’t think they should make Islam vacate,” Pimblett said in an interview with TNT Sports. “If you’re making Islam vacate, [Jon] Jones needs to be stripped. If you’re making Islam vacate after four defenses, fighting people on short notice, you should let him try to be double champ.”
Does Pimblett have a point, or did the UFC make a necessary business decision by taking the lightweight title off of Islam Makhachev?
