This was announced at the press conference after the UFC 294 tournament by the president of the world’s strongest league, Dana White.
“It was spectacular – he really impressed me today,” said the head of the organization. “Islam is talented enough, but I don’t think he’s going to be fighting at welterweight anytime soon – there are a few more guys in the lightweight division that he needs to face. If he holds the title for another year and wants to move up to welterweight, then why not…”
White believes the Russian’s next opponent should be Charles Oliveira, who suffered a dissection eleven days before his rematch with Makhachev and lost his title shot to the Australian.
“I think we have to give Oliveira a chance. He was ready to fight, but unfortunately he got a dissection. I guess Oliveira will be next, but again, there are a lot of additional questions that I don’t have answers for at the moment. We’ll go home and decide what happens next.”
As a reminder, the lightweight title superfight between Islam Makhachev and Alex Volkanovski headlined the Abu Dhabi numbered event, which took place in Abu Dhabi, ended at the 3:06 mark of the first round with the Russian winning by technical knockout.