Every time a champion says no to a date, a loud corner of the internet grabs a pitchfork and starts writing the UFC’s press release for it. This week the target is Islam Makhachev. The crowd yelling “strip him” has plenty of volume and not much of a case.
Here’s the setup. Makhachev, the welterweight champion who kept his belt by beating Ian Machado Garry in August, had UFC 336 in Toronto penciled in as his second defense. That card is the first numbered event of 2027, and January was a target he’d floated himself. Then he confirmed he’d been offered the rumored fight with Carlos Prates and passed. He now plans to wait until after Ramadan, which Bloody Elbow says puts his return in May at the earliest. The UFC moved fast and booked Prates against Michael Morales for the interim welterweight title on the Toronto card.
The comment section wants blood
Bloody Elbow rounded up fan reaction from the TalkingPoints app and its Facebook page, and it reads like a group chat at 1 a.m. “Strip him of the title.” “He’s not confident that he can beat Prates.” One fan pitched a rule where any champ who refuses two fights in a year gets stripped automatically. That’s a fun idea right up until you notice the whole controversy is about him turning down one fight.
The sharpest shot came from a fan who claimed Makhachev “wanted to fight Kamaru Usman but these guys have to fight to see who is worthy?” I’ll give that one some credit. If the champ is shopping for a name while the contenders run a gauntlet, people are going to notice. But a fan’s jab in a comment thread is a long way from a reason to take a belt off a guy who defended it a couple of months ago.
Matt Brown has the right answer
Matt Brown, a 30-fight UFC veteran who spent years in this exact division, took the other side on The Fighter vs. The Writer on MMA Fighting. “He is in position being that he’s done such great things, I feel like he’s earned that right,” Brown said.
He didn’t stop there. Brown argued that champions at the top get to be selective, and he wasn’t apologizing for it. “When you get to that level, you get a little bit more picky and choosy, as you should. I’m not going to hate on Islam being picky and choosy about this fight.”
Brown’s best point was about structure. “The UFC needs to make a standard,” he said, laying out a simple rule where a champ who sits too long triggers an interim belt. His wording: “if you don’t defend for this long, we make an interim title.” He compared it to boxing, where champions jockeying over opponents is routine. “This happens in boxing all the time,” Brown said.
Now look at what the UFC actually did. It made an interim title. The exact mechanism Brown wants showed up within days of Makhachev’s no. Prates and Morales get a real belt fight in a big market in January, the division keeps moving, and the actual champion is waiting at the end of it. That’s how this is supposed to work.
Stripping him would be absurd
I can’t stand champions who park on the belt. Bloody Elbow notes Makhachev has a reputation for fighting about once a year, and a January defense would have broken that pattern, so I get why people are annoyed. But do the math. August to May is about nine months. One commenter, markmarston, put it plainly: “One fight a year isn’t ideal but it doesn’t warrant the title being stripped.” Another fan pointed out that Makhachev has fought four times in the last three years, which is a busier clip than the “he never fights” crowd wants to admit.
Yanking the belt off an active champ for one declined matchup would set a precedent the UFC would regret by summer. Every champ with a cut, a holiday or a camp issue would be one bad week from losing everything. That’s how you end up with a division full of paper titles and zero lineal story.
Where Islam blew it
He isn’t off the hook, though. The fan who wrote “He shouldn’t have said he wanted to fight again in January” nailed the actual problem. Makhachev set the expectation himself, the rumor about Prates built heat, and then he pulled the rug. That’s how a reasonable scheduling call turns into a week of “he’s ducking” posts. Champions who call their shot and back it up get worshipped. Champions who call their shot and then reschedule get comment sections like this one.
So here’s my ruling. Keep the belt on Makhachev. Let Prates and Morales settle it in Toronto in January. And when Islam comes back after Ramadan, his first fight has to be the winner. No detours, no name-shopping, no third option. If he skips the interim champ in May, then I’ll grab a pitchfork too.
