Islam Makhachev

Islam Ramazanovich Makhachev is a Russian professional mixed martial artist, born in Makhachkala, Dagestan, on 27 October 1991, an ethnic Lak who grew up in the remote village of Burshi.¹² He held the UFC lightweight championship from October 2022 with a division-record four successful defences, then won the UFC welterweight championship in November 2025, and holds the longest winning streak in UFC history, at 17.¹ Before his MMA career he was the 2016 world champion in combat sambo.¹

Makhachev was born in Makhachkala and grew up in Burshi; his father grew tomatoes and worked as a driver, and his mother was a housewife who ran a small café.¹ He began taekwondo at seven under the sambo champion Seyfula Magomedov, moved through sanda and freestyle wrestling, and settled into mixed martial arts under Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, the father and coach of Khabib Nurmagomedov.¹ In combat sambo he won the Russian national title at 74 kg in 2014 and 2016, then gold at the FIAS World Combat Sambo Championship in November 2016.¹ He competed in professional MMA from 2010, signed with the UFC in October 2014 and debuted in May 2015.¹ On 22 October 2022 he submitted Charles Oliveira with an arm-triangle choke in the second round to win the vacant UFC lightweight championship, and defended it four times — against Alexander Volkanovski twice, Dustin Poirier and Renato Moicano — the most defences in the division's history.¹ After beating Volkanovski in February 2023 he reached first place in the UFC's pound-for-pound rankings.¹ On 15 November 2025 he beat Jack Della Maddalena by unanimous decision at UFC 322 to become welterweight champion and a two-division champion, and on 15 August 2026 he defended the new title against Ian Machado Garry, extending his winning streak to 17, the longest in UFC history.¹ He has received Dagestani state honours, including the Order "For Merit to the Republic of Dagestan" in 2022 and the Sali Suleiman medal in 2023.¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum. Neither the English nor the Arabic article makes any statement of Makhachev's religion in its text.¹³ The closest the English article comes is recording that he once withdrew from an early bout citing "a religious reason", and that he trained under Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov.¹ Wikidata gives his religion as Islam, generically, naming no school.² Because a coach's tradition and the Dagestani milieu are context rather than attestation, his school is recorded in the museum's data as unknown.¹²

• Islam Makhachev — English Wikipedia¹
• Islam Makhachev — Arabic Wikipedia³
• Islam Makhachev — Wikidata Q18637676²