In the UFC, one of the main fights of the year, and maybe of all time Khabib's friend and successor Islam Makhachev fights with Alexander Volkanovski, an Orthodox rugby player from Australia

On the night of February 12, the Australian city of Perth will host the UFC 284 tournament - one of the most anticipated this year In the main battle, two champions of the organization will fight: Russian Islam Makhachev and Australian Alexander Volkanovski.

UFC chief Dana White has already said that their fight could become "one of the top five fights of all time " Meduza tells you what you need to know about this tournament.

Islam Makhachev is the successor and friend of Khabib He will fight the best fighter in the entire UFC (at least according to the official rating) At the tournament in Australia, Islam Makhachev will defend the lightweight title for the first time - he won it just four months ago, in October 2022.

The 31-year-old champion was born in Makhachkala, he has been friends with Khabib Nurmagomedov since childhood They studied at the same gymnasium, studied wushu and played football together.

At some point, Makhachev abandoned martial arts, but after learning that Khabib had begun his professional career, he returned and went to the gym to Nurmagomedov's father Abdulmanap Training had to be combined with study.

After classes at the university, Islam immediately went to the gym and trained until late in the evening At the same time, Makhachev got a job as a security guard: “He took a lot of money at home in order to go to the same training camps, to the same competitions.

At some point, I realized that this could no longer continue for a long time ” However, Makhachev's boss turned out to be a martial arts fan, so he let him go from shifts to training and even allowed him to go to competitions instead of work (while continuing to pay his salary).

In 2010, Islam Makhachev had his first professional fight in mixed martial arts - and won And by 2015, he brought the winning streak to 11 fights and signed a contract with the UFC.

In the first fight in this organization, he strangled Leo Kunz, but in the next fight, the Brazilian Adriano Martinez knocked out Makhachev in the first round The coach, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, took the blame for this defeat.

He considered that the student was ready for an exchange of blows, so Makhachev moved away from his favorite tactic - to decide the outcome of the battle through wrestling “My only tears in sports in recent years .

A lump in my throat, as I remember,” Abdulmanap later said This defeat is the only one in Islam's career so far.

After a knockout from Martinez, Makhachev scored 11 victories in a row In total, Islam won 23 out of 24 fights, and in the UFC - 12 out of 13.

However, it was not without difficulties In April 2016, meldonium was found in Makhachev's blood, and he was disqualified.

Later it turned out that the fighter secretly underwent heart surgery and took the drug to recover from it In July 2016, Makhachev was acquitted, he was able to return to fighting.

But a few years after that, Islam received rivals of a not very high level Fans were sure that the UFC neglected Makhachev, as dana white made a bet on the promotion of another student of Abdulman Nurmagomedov - Khabib, whose fighting style was very similar to what Islam showed.

At the same time, both Abdulmanap and Khabib himself said many times that after Nurmagomedov left the UFC, it was Makhachev who would become the lightweight champion And so it happened.

After the death of his father, Khabib announced his retirement from professional sports, and Islam began to quickly move towards the fight for the championship belt Finally, in October 2022, Islam got it and easily defeated the Brazilian Charles Oliveira.

It was Khabib who put the belt on him, who, as usual, was in Makhachev's corner during the duel Almost immediately after that, it became known that the Australian Alexander Volkanovski, the featherweight champion, would become the next opponent of Makhachev, who would rise to the light weight specifically for this and try to become the owner of two belts at once.

Officially, this fight will be a duel between the two best fighters in the entire UFC Volkanovski now occupies the first line of the pound-for-pound rating (the general list of the strongest fighters of the organization, regardless of the weight category), Makhachev is in second place.

This is the first time in the history of the UFC that two leaders of this rating will meet in battle Volkanovski was born in the small Australian town of Shellharbor in South Wales.

His mother is Greek and his father is Macedonian Volkanovski is proud of his Macedonian origin, he is Orthodox, celebrating Easter and stuffed a cross on his back.

Alexander started wrestling at the age of eight, but then he became interested in rugby: at the age of 23 he became the state champion in the semi-professional league and even received the title of the best player of the season But the very next year, Alexander was injured, and while healing it, he kept fit in the MMA hall.

There he met coach Joe Lopez (with whom he still works) and decided to return to martial arts, ending his career in rugby To pay for training, Alexander had to work at a construction site and borrow money from former rugby partners.

But everything paid off: first, Volkanovski won everything that was possible in the regional leagues of Australia, and in November 2016 he made his debut in the UFC There he quickly "ride" through the featherweight division.

During his rugby career, Alexander weighed about 100 kilograms with a height of 168 centimeters, but in MMA, the weight had to be dropped - the miniature Volkanovski simply could not compete with heavyweights under two meters tall In the UFC, he started with six victories and went to the former champion, Brazilian Jose Aldo.

The Australian won all three rounds and was so happy about the victory that he did not pay attention to the pain in his leg On the plane back from Rio, his leg swelled up, Volkanovski had a fever and began to hallucinate.

Later it turned out that the fighter had blood poisoning, and he could lose his leg But the plane was urgently landed in Chile, the doctors saved Volkanovski.

The Australian soon got his first title shot and took the belt by defeating Max Holloway In total, from 2019 to 2022, Volkanovski met Max three times - and defeated him three times (especially confidently - the last time).

In total, the 34-year-old Volkanovski has 26 fights in MMA - 25 wins and just one loss How can the fight between Makhachev and Volkanovski go? It is Makhachev who is considered the favorite of the fight.

Experts suggest that, moving to a new weight category, Volkanovski will lose in maneuverability, which will be used by Makhachev, who, obviously, will again rely on his wrestling skills Most likely, in pure physical strength, the advantage will also be for Makhachev, who performs at his usual weight.

However, it is possible that in the stand, the Australian will be able to "kill" Islam Volkanovski is 10 centimeters shorter than the Russian fighter, but has a larger arm span.

In addition, 11 of the last 12 opponents were higher than the Australian, but this did not save them from defeat At featherweight, Volkanovski is in the top 3 in terms of the number of accented punches (1372) and their accuracy (57%).

This is about five times more than that of Makhachev If Islam wins, it will top the pound-for-pound rating, repeating the achievement of Khabib.

And he will also set a record: he will become the first fighter who defeated rivals with a winning streak of 10 or more fights in two fights in a row If Volkanovski wins, he will become the fifth fighter in UFC history to hold belts in multiple weight divisions.

Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Henry Cejudo and Amanda Nuniz have done it before The tournament will determine the future opponent of Volkanovski.

And another friend of Khabib (and enemy of Conor) will also perform The second most important fight of UFC 284 will be the fight between Josh Emmett and Yair Rodriguez for the interim featherweight belt.

A temporary title is awarded to a fighter when the holder of a permanent belt for any reason cannot defend his title for a long time For example, if he is injured - or moves to another weight category.

That is, if, after the fight with Makhachev, Volkanovski decides to return to his weight category, he will fight with the winner of the Emmett-Rodriguez pair Experts believe that it will be the Mexican Yair Rodriguez.

30-year-old Yair is seven years younger than his opponent and 11 centimeters taller than him This is expected to give Rodriguez a stand-up advantage as he is considered one of the UFC's top kicking fighters.

In addition, in addition to Makhachev, another fighter from Russia will perform at UFC 284 - Zubaira Tukhugov will fight with Brazilian Elwes Brenner For the Brazilian, the fight will be his debut in the UFC, and Tukhugov will hold his first fight in lightweight (before that, he fought in featherweight).

The transition to lightweight and the fight with the debutant is an attempt by Tukhugov to restart his career In the last five fights, Zubaira won only two times; in eight years in the UFC, he lost seven fights, and six - through the fault of Tukhugov himself.

And that is not all In 2017, the fighter was disqualified for two years for doping.

In the blood of a fighter, they found the drug ostarine, which increases testosterone levels Zubaira insisted that the substance entered the body with low-quality food additives, but there was no evidence of this.

And in 2018, at the UFC 229 tournament, where Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor, Tukhugov burst into the cage after the fight and tried to hit the lying Irishman So the fighter tried to take revenge on Conor, who called Tukhugov "a traitor to the Chechen people" for his friendship with Nurmagomedov.

For this, Tukhugov was given another 12 months of disqualification - however, later the period was reduced to one month At UFC 284, Tukhugov is also not going smoothly yet.

He failed the official weigh-in, not fitting into the lightweight category .