Islam Makhachev went to Kyrgyzstan and got schooled by a sport played on horseback. Video of the UFC welterweight champion playing kok boru (also spelled kokboru, and known as kokpar) surfaced this week, first through the kokboru_official_ Instagram account and then across X, where Sherdog and the account @DovySimuMMA both shared clips of him in the saddle.
The short version is that Makhachev expected to cruise and didn’t. Speaking about his first experience with the game, he was refreshingly honest about how badly he’d misjudged it from watching footage.
“It seemed like I would play it with ease, but it’s very hard and takes a lot of training,” Makhachev said. “Lifting the ram is a hard task when other players are trying to stop you. It’s all about the team effort.”
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He also opened the trip with a callout of sorts, aimed at a host rather than an opponent: “Myktybek Orolbai, where are you? I arrived in Kyrgyzstan.” Sherdog framed the whole episode as the champ finding out how wrong his first impression was, which is a fair read of a man who spends most of his professional life making hard things look routine.
Where Makhachev stands
The trip comes during a quiet stretch after a busy summer. Makhachev beat Ian Machado Garry by unanimous decision at UFC 330 in August to keep the welterweight title, a fight Dana White apparently still hasn’t gotten over for unrelated reasons. White was again griping this week about Garry hugging Makhachev, saying, “You go out and start shaking his hand, and hugging him, do that when they’re strapping the belt on you.”
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Makhachev sits at No. 1 in Yahoo Sports’ October men’s pound-for-pound rankings, and all five panelists whose ballots appear in the release had him first. The same rankings flagged the line forming behind him at 170 pounds, and it’s a nasty one.
Carlos Prates looks like the next challenger after his dominant knockout of former champion Jack Della Maddalena in May. Michael Morales, who weighed in as the backup for UFC 330, is 7-0 in the UFC and riding three straight first-round knockouts over Sean Brady, Gilbert Burns and Neil Magny. He released a video Sunday demanding the champion, saying, “You and me for the belt.” Morales also accused Makhachev of possibly preferring Prates “because you prefer an easy fighter,” which is a bold way to describe a guy who just flattened Della Maddalena.
Then there’s Shavkat Rakhmonov, 19-0 and out since December 2024 with knee injuries. MMA Fighting reported that Rakhmonov hinted in a TikTok caption at a matchup of undefeated records, and Morales also sits at 19-0. Nothing is booked for any of them yet.
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Quick take
I love this clip, mostly because Makhachev described the sport the way a grappler would. Grabbing a heavy object off the ground while several people try to strip it from you is a scramble, the same problem he solves against the fence every fight, except now the base is a horse and the horse has opinions. A champion admitting he got humbled tells you he actually tried instead of posing for photos. The harder test is coming at welterweight, where Prates is the logical next name and Morales is making the loudest case. My pick is Makhachev handles Prates on the mat, and nobody in that cage will be on horseback to help him.
