Islam Makhachev, the protégé of UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov, has won his UFC 280 lightweight title fight against Charles Oliveira in the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, on Saturday the 22nd of October.

The UFC lightweight title has been vacant since UFC 274, where Oliveira failed to make weight for his title defense against former interim champion Justin Gaethje. This title fight was also extremely tense because both Makhachev and Oliveira were on winning sprees of 10 fights or more, something that the UFC has never seen before in any match-up.

In the first round there was a decent amount of standup fighting, until the fight mostly took to the ground with Islam repeatedly scoring several successful takedowns. Oliveira didn’t yield however, escaping a few times and staying into the fight. He even was able to hash out a nasty up-kick that briefly made Makhachev stop in his tracks.

The fight was concluded in the second round, in which Makhachev was able to seriously hit Oliveira in the head a few times during standup fighting. The last hit presented an opportunity for a quick takedown for Makhachev, followed by a super effective arm-triangle choke hold that forced Oliveira to tap out.

Makhachev and Oliveira were fighting to become the successor of the Nurmagomedov, who was the unbeaten champion that has been regarded as one of the most dominant fighters to ever grace the sport since he left UFC in 2020.

UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov recently appeared to have ruled out a return to MMA, claiming his "flame has gone out" for the sport: "Perhaps it's because the flame inside of me went out". When asked whether MMA has declined since his retirement, Nurmagomedov told UFC Russia that it had. "However, I do believe that MMA has suffered recently, and there has undoubtedly been a decline, but that is just my opinion; everyone has differing opinions.”