Two-weight UFC champion Islam Makhachev is openly wondering how dominant Anthony Joshua could be if he transitioned from boxing and developed one facet of mixed martial arts.
Joshua is a two-time former unified heavyweight boxing champion with significant wins over Wladimir Klitschko, Joseph Parker, and Alexander Povetkin.
He has talked about other forms of combat sport before, including bare knuckle, which he once described as his second favorite discipline. However, Islam Makhachev — arguably the greatest UFC champions today — believes he’d make a solid MMA fighter, too.
Makhachev and Joshua have met one another before, and Makhachev invited him to Dagestan, a region in which an oppressive style of wrestling has become one of the most difficult styles to compete against at world level.
Speaking to ArenaFightTV, Makhachev said: “This guy is huge, big. Very good striking, one of the best boxers in the world.”
With victories over Charles Oliveira, Alexander Volkanovski (twice), and Jack Della Maddalena, Makhachev has won champions across lightweight and welterweight, and is close to surpassing the legacy forged by his mentor Khabib Nurmagomedov.
And he marveled at Joshua’s potential in his sport.
“If this big guy improved his wrestling, imagine how good he’s going to be in MMA.”
Joshua’s future in combat sports, though, is unclear. His career-long promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom, even said there are no guarantees that AJ fights again following a tragic car accident in which two of his close friends died, and he mourns the loss.
As for Makhachev, he is on the cusp of a significant fight, perhaps even putting his welterweight championship on the line against the UFC’s latest lightning rod Ilia Topuria in June, at an event on the lawns of The White House in Washington D.C., to coincide with US President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations the following month.
“I tell the UFC, I will be ready soon,” said Makhachev, later, in the same interview. “I want to be in The White House because it will be once and only, and I want to be in history.”
