Islam Makhachev is now the UFC Lightweight world champion and although he’s truly an incredible wrestler in the octagon, he also thinks he’s a good enough wrestler in general to beat Jordan Burroughs. Makhachev has been open about this before and he’s made the claim as recently as 2021, no doubt because he’s regularly demolishing every training partner he’s given. It might not an entirely crazy prospect at first, as Khabib Nurmagomedov was throwing around high-level wrestlers with ease back when he was competing too.
Of course, Burroughs is a whole other type of wrestler. Not only is he an Olympic champion, but Burroughs has also won a gold medal at the wrestling world championships on an incredible six different occasions. He’s the kind of wrestler that only a handful of men on the planet could ever get the better of, and he’s beaten most of them at another time too. That hasn’t stopped Islam Makhachev though, and he has said to Daniel Cormier before that he believes he could give Jordan Burroughs a good match:
“Bring some Olympic level guy to AKA, wrestler, like Jordan Burroughs. It’s gonna be a good match for me… Please brother, this guy, I respect him – but he only [goes for a] Double Leg.”
“That guy [Makhachev] is so hard to take down once you get to his legs; almost at a point that he almost invites you. And now, he’s lost his mind when he says: “Bring Jordan Burroughs and all those guys.” Because those guys would tear him apart. I don’t care how good he is at wrestling in MMA, Islam ain’t beating Jordan Burroughs. And I tell these guys that all the time.”
While Cormier is very down-to-earth and he clearly appreciates how incredible Jordan Burroughs actually is on the mats, he still has nothing but praise for Islam Makhachev and his skills in all facets of MMA. Cormier knows a lot about Makhachev’s potential and he honestly thinks that he’ll be a force to be reckoned with for a pretty long time now that he’s won the UFC Lightweight world championship for the first time:
“This guy is a good wrestler, and this guy is on his way to becoming a very dominant champion. The Islam Makhachev era is upon us now, guys. Strap in.”
Daniel Cormier discussed how Islam Makhachev truly he believes he would out-wrestle Jordan Burroughs in a recent episode of his podcast, three rounds, which was uploaded to his official YouTube channel:
