Christian Lee picked the hardest thing to say about the hardest guy to say it about, and I respect it. He spoke with Guilherme Cruz of MMA Fighting the day before his welterweight title defense against Tye Ruotolo at The Inner Circle 37 in Thailand. ONE’s two-division champion named Islam Makhachev as the one fight he’d choose if he could choose anything. Then he explained how he’d win, which is by doing Makhachev things to Makhachev.
“Take the fight to him,” Lee said. “I feel like I can catch him on the feet. I feel like I can take him down, dominate him, do everything that he does to other people.”
I love a fighter who calls his shot. I also want to be honest about which half of that shot is believable.
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The striking part tracks. The takedown part is wild.
“Catch him on the feet” is a reasonable sentence. Lee has lost once in his past 11 fights under the ONE banner and knocked out every one of those opponents except one. That’s the profile of a guy who ends nights. Makhachev’s only MMA loss came by knockout, to Adriano Martins back in 2016, so the idea that a finisher with heavy hands could find his chin isn’t science fiction.
Then Lee says he’d take Makhachev down and dominate him, and the volume on my eyebrows goes to 11. Since that Martins loss, Makhachev has won 17 straight, which set the UFC record for consecutive victories. Telling the world you’ll out-wrestle that guy is like walking into Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen and announcing you’ll handle the beef Wellington. Bold. Possibly great television. Very possibly a disaster.
Lee’s case for why he could pull it off leans on a familiar line. “He’s fought everyone, but he’s only fought everyone in the UFC. He hasn’t fought people outside,” he told MMA Fighting. That’s technically accurate, and it’s also the argument every champion outside the UFC eventually makes. I don’t hold it against him. He has a different style and skillset, he said, and he’d love to show it one day. Fair enough. Showing it is the whole job.
Give him credit for consistency
This isn’t a sudden fit of confidence. Five years ago Lee said he was the No. 1 lightweight in the world, ahead of Khabib Nurmagomedov. Now he’s sliding himself above Khabib’s teammate and friend. You can call it delusion, but you can’t call it a guy flip-flopping for clicks.
He was also classy about the Khabib comparison when asked whether Makhachev is the better fighter. Lee said it isn’t fair to rank Islam above Khabib, since Khabib retired because of a promise to his father and cut his own career short on his honor. “Khabib was always the big bro, he was always the guy,” Lee said, before noting Islam is the one still active, so Islam is the name he’s calling. That’s how you call out a legend. No cheap shots, just a request for the fight.
Friday is the audition
All of this is fantasy booking until Lee handles Ruotolo, and Ruotolo is about the most relevant test he could get for the Makhachev talk. Ruotolo is a decorated jiu-jitsu competitor and a ONE grappling champion who’s 2-0 under MMA rules, with both wins by submission. The first came against Lee’s younger brother, Adrian, in September 2025. Christian says Adrian was dealing with a back injury that kept him from sparring, and that Ruotolo got him down early and dragged the fight into his world.
Lee knows the ring helps that kind of opponent. He pointed out that grapplers like the open-mat feel, and that near the ropes there’s no cage, so you can reach behind them and lock up a body lock. His answer is camp work with Max Holloway in Hawaii and a lifetime of jiu-jitsu of his own. “I think the key for me is to show him the difference between MMA and jiu-jitsu, and to use my MMA experience to counter his jiu-jitsu experience,” he said.
Here’s my argument, plain. If Lee wants anyone to buy the line about taking Makhachev down, he needs to keep a two-fight MMA grappler off his hips first. If Ruotolo wraps him up against the ropes the way he did Adrian, the Makhachev conversation dies on the spot. If Lee stuffs the shots, stays on top and finishes, the pitch gets a lot more interesting.
He says he’s leaving the family revenge angle out of it. “There’s no room for emotion,” Lee said, adding it “would be foolish” to let extra feelings creep in. His stated plan is simpler. “I plan to knock him out cold or put him to sleep,” he said.
That’s the right answer, and I want to see it. They fight Friday, Nov. 6, in Thailand. If Lee is the one doing the body locking by the ropes, I’ll start taking the Makhachev talk seriously. If Ruotolo finds his back, the Lee family has a two-brother problem, and Islam never has to hear the name again.
