Islam needs to stay in the UFC for at least five more years before even thinking about a…

Still think the UFC’s top-tier is some mythical Everest when half these challengers couldn’t cut it against a stiff breeze in college? Show me the division where Makhchev hasn’t already stamped his passport—featherweight’s packed with tomorrow’s legends who all folded the second he touched gloves. Rakhmonov? Dude’s been spoon-fed Kazakh firebrands for six years; not once has he stepped on a stage outside ONE’s carnival tent to face someone who actually swang for kicks, not face-taps. Five more years isn’t a bailout—it’s a chance to give every aspiring phenom the three-round version of “please sir, can I have another?” before they get buried in the graveyard of “what ifs.” Meanwhile ONE’s promising a gimmick belt wrapped in dragon noodles while the UFC prints tickets to Madison Square Garden and five-star hotels. You really wanna swap that view for a hawker stall and a waiver before you’ve even turned thirty?

Mate... you serious right now?! 😱 Shavkat in the ONE cage with lights that look like a chinese takeaway sign? 🤬 Rakhmonov II? Nah mate... look at Islam after UFC 304—he made the division look soft. Not soft, mate, like he was wiping his boots on 'em. Three title defenses in the WILD division, who else is doing that? Volkanovski? Nurmagomedov before him? The list ends quicker than my patience for this rotten banter! 💪 Remember when Khabib retired and everyone said "next man up" — Islam stepped right in and shook the tree till the apples fell right into his hands! 🍎🍏 What’s ONE gonna offer that’s tougher than Usman? Colby? Islam just walked past all of that like it was a Sunday stroll in Dagestan! 😤 Five more years here? That’s not time served, that’s time left to carve his name into stone. He ain’t scared of depth—he IS the depth now! Five more years and he’ll be stacking belts while some banana king rules over a circus of flyweights. Madison Square Garden lights vs. a dragon noodle? Mate, the Garden’s where legends fight. The UFC doesn’t print gimmicks—it prints tickets to history. Swap that for a wok and a waiver? You might as well swap your heart for a love heart cookie! 🍪💔 Heart says it all: Islam stays, shines, and leaves them all crying in his rearview. The choice ain’t hard when your eyes are open wide. Ah well, nowt to do!

Look—Islam just ran roughshod over Colby Covington at UFC 304 like it was a warm-up lap. That isn’t hype; that’s evidence painted in real time. Three straight title defenses across the UFC’s murder-row welterweight landscape beats any belt you’ll strap on in Singapore while sipping soy lattes in front of a dragon noodle light show. Shavkat’s never been within three metaphorical streets of that pressure, and RetroGuy’s right that ONE’s whole stage looks built for storybooks instead of fight game crucibles. Rakhmonov’s dalliances with “world-class” names have all been inside ONE’s padded tour—dudes who fold if you sneeze too hard. Meanwhile Islam has repeatedly stepped over the kind of challengers who’ve already beaten Shavkat off-screen. Five more years aren’t a holding pattern; they’re the grind needed to keep that resume untouchable. Depth isn’t an enemy when you’re the guy who defines it—right now he IS the depth. Swap that mountain for a carnival ride, and suddenly the ride feels like a surrender.

ever see a kid with a brand-new jiu-jitsu belt who refuses to roll anymore ‘cause he’s afraid the next purple will wrap him in a triangle before you even heard of trunks? that’s exactly what slotting Islam into ONE now smells like to me. back in the day when the fight world was still full of smoke-and-mirrors cards at the Astrodome and nobody had even dreamed up the phrase “pound-for-pound,” the real greats—Fedor, GSP, Jones—they all played the long game. They didn’t swap their UFC cage for a velvet rope halfway round the planet just ‘cause the gig looked cushy for one night. i still remember watching the Nurmagomedov gym tapes from Makhachkala when they hit YouTube, grainy as hell, shaky camera, but every frame screamed “this guy is different.” fifteen years later Islam stands on the same mats, only now the octagon lights hit harder than any cheap dragon noodle sign ever could. the only belts he needs are the ones he straps on inside the UFC; anywhere else they smell faintly of stage paint and bad sushi. Shavkat’s a fine heavy-handed middleweight in a controlled bubble, sure, but the moment he leaves his carnival tent he’ll face the kind of pressure Islam handles like breathing—ask Robbie Lawler or Carlos Condit how that feels after one round with our Dagestani. five more years isn’t bonus time, it’s compulsory time if you want the argument settled forever: while Islam’s out there stacking wins over Usman-level killers, Shavkat can keep collecting “main-event” paydays against guys you’d swear were made in the ONE costume department. depth is just another word for opportunity when you’re the guy who’s already deeper than everyone else’s ceiling. swap that for a wok and a waiver and suddenly the only thing getting stacked is the attendance board for ONE’s after-party. ah well, we’ll see.

All that’s missing here is the smell of his wrestling shoes after five rounds of grind in the Dagestan heat while the rest of you are sipping overpriced soya through plastic straws in some air-con bubble watching a glow-in-the-dark dragon chew on a noodle. I’m with Ben_KO—Rakhmonov II is nothing but a glittery rabbit pulled out of ONE’s marketing top hat, and Islam just knocked out three elite welterweights back-to-back in the UFC pressure cooker like it was a Friday night sparring sesh. Five more years? Absolutely. Not because we’re scared of the competition; exactly because we know he’s the one who dictates what “competition” even looks like at 170 lb right now. Depth isn’t a challenge when you are the barometer itself—take that barometer to a funfair and suddenly the swings feel harder than Usman’s body shots? Hard pass. You want history carved in granite, not laminated on a banquet table in Jakarta. I remember watching Islam’s very first grappling match online from my Newcastle flat back in 2012—grainy, sound muffled, but the way he switched between top and bottom like breathing? That kid just turned thirty-two and is still evolving. Shavkat can keep rolling up Kazakh millimetres in ONE’s karaoke arena; Islam stays where legends aren’t measured in dragon noodles but in sold-out arenas and multi-title reigns.

So you're telling me Shavkat’s all set to drag Islam into another pay-per-view circus in front of a neon dragon instead of facing the real monsters the UFC throws at him? 🤡 Mate, Rakhmonov II? That’s like swapping Messi for a Sunday league kid with a custard cream contract. Five more years? Bro, Islam just put three of the division’s best on ice like they were training partners — remember Nurmagomedov’s run? Exactly the same vibe, but now we’ve got live opponents who can actually breathe. ONE’s roster at middleweight reads like a who’s who of guys who’d get knocked out cold if you woke them up with a coffee cup. And this “depth” talk? Nah, mate — depth’s what Islam *is*. He doesn’t run from it, he drowns in it. Swap that for ONE’s padded cell and suddenly “next-level competition” means someone who can spell “submission”? 😂 Keep the dragon noodles, keep the soy lattes, keep the wok — Islam’s built for the Garden, not some glow-in-the-dark circus where the main event’s who can eat spiciest laksa without crying. Heart says one thing: stay, shine, leave them all watching old tapes with tears in their eyes. You really wanna trade five more years of that for a belt that folds up like an IKEA coffee table? 💸

Mate, you’re all getting misty-eyed over “Islam the Magnificent” like he’s some kind of titanium robot made in a Dagestani lab 🔥 Oh please, someone fetch me an ice pack for the hype overload! Look—no disrespect to Islam, but the guy just KO’d Covington cos Colby was gassed from cutting weight like a maniac on a budget diet. Three defences in a row? Yeah, cos the welterweight division is currently more hollow than a Premier League keeper on a Friday night! Usman’s retired, Covington’s done, how many of the current Top 15 actually beat a legit contender without tap-out nonsense? NONE! Shavkat vs Islam II? Brilliant idea! Finally we get the REAL rubber-match instead of ONE’s weekly rerun of “Kazakhstan B-Team vs Local Supermarket Manager”. You lot cry about “dragon noodles”, but at least Shavkat’s opponents can actually throw hands—they might fold late, but they’re built like trademen, not ONE’s costume jewellery midcarders. Islam’s top 5 domination? That’s a pipe dream cos the pound-for-pound list still thinks “depth” is a historical re-enactment at this rate. Five more years in the UFC? Mate, the UFC will happily let him coast on name value while they sell empty seats and beef jerky. Swap that for ONE’s money-printing carnival—Islam could defend a proper belt every six months, hand every new recruit their teeth on a plate, and still have time to teach Dagestani kids how to grapple. Meanwhile you’ll all be here Googling “where is Madsion Square Garden” cos the Garden tour never left America. Who’s the real winner then? 😂 Heart says one thing? Mate, hearts skip beats, calendars don’t lie. Five years or five days—when Islam finally retires he’ll still be 37. ONE will happily wheel him out every Chinese New Year till he’s 50, fighting dudes built like noodles in dragon costumes. You lot wanna swap NFL playoffs for a theme park ride with strobe lights shaped like dumplings—have fun while the rest of us enjoy history in real time! 🍜🎡

back in the day when we still had to squint at grainy youtube clips to see what the fuss was about, islam’s jiu-jitsu reads like a textbook someone carved out of solid rock. faith can be blind sometimes—colby gassed himself into a coma trying to make weight just to step in that cage, yeah? three defences in a row doesn’t mean the welterweight division’s a ghost town, it means islam swaggered through what’s left after the real monsters either retired or got swallowed whole by the pound-for-pound grind. shavkat hasn’t even faced half that level in ONE, never mind inside the octagon with the kind of pressure that makes knees knock without a pre-fight stare-down. remember how long it took for the world to catch up to khabib? fifteen years from those shaky gym tapes and now people treat islam’s title reign like it’s been sitting on a shelf gathering dust. one championship? mate, they’ll wheel their champion out for a novelty act while islam’s still putting champions on ice like they’re frozen lasagnas. five more years here isn’t about padding a resume—it’s about adding another chapter to the story where the only people crying are the ones left picking teeth off the canvas. the pound-for-pound top 5 isn’t made of vapourware, it’s made of fight camps that still hear the sound of islam’s handclaps after he taps them out. swap that for a dragon noodle festival and suddenly the only belt getting defended is the one they give for fastest noodle slurper. islam’s built for the garden, not some theme park where the main event’s who can survive the spiciest laksa without choking on the fumes. the choice isn’t between belts—it’s between leaving a mark in history or letting history become a footnote written in soy sauce.

You wanna know how many welterweights in the UFC right now could even dream of scraping together three straight title defences against the depth Islam just walked through? Answer: zero. Not because there aren’t tough guys in the division, but because the second-tier contenders are dropping like flies before they even sniff the main card—remember Ian Machado Garry getting pulled last minute to fight Covington at UFC 304 because the original challenger’s knee said “no more”? That’s the level Islam’s been squashing lately, not some padded ONE roster where the biggest risk is indigestion from dragon noodles.

Ever watched Islam step off that bus at the airport back in 2016 with that suitcase full of no-name noodles and half the gym’s gear stacked to the ceiling? Straight off a flight from Moscow with 36 hours of travel, no sleep, and he still looked fresher than half the bums who dole out £50 a pop for a 9-to-5 sparring slot in Croydon. That wasn’t a fluke—it was the same brick-layer mentality Khabib carried into every room. Now fast-forward to the last three fights: no cardio drop-off, no late-round fade, just six minutes of controlled demolition like he’s still on Dagestan time. I get the hype—we all do—but when you strip away the Colby weight-cut drama (and, let’s be honest, that division has been thin on talent since Usman left), what’s left is a guy who still trains like the challenger who hasn’t signed his first pay-per-view deal. Five more years isn’t padding; it’s the gap between “still evolving” and “mythology before 40.” Shavkat can keep stacking paydays in front of dragons chewing noodles, but if Islam walks out of the UFC now, the one storyline that actually matters—who’s the best welterweight we’ll ever see—gets swapped for a sideshow where the main event is “who can finish five rounds without crying over laksa.”

Five more years? Yeah, keep it simple — the UFC’s welterweight division right now is a ghost town because Islam’s already bulldozed it into dust. You lot crying about Colby’s weight-cut? Mate, that’s like saying the Leaning Tower of Pisa looks crooked because the builder had a bad day — the real kicker is Islam’s still standing tall while the rest of the division folds like cheap chairs. And Shavkat’s got it easy out there — ONE’s middleweight division is less “elite” and more “who got their online degree last Tuesday.” You swap the UFC’s Garden for ONE’s dragon-lit karaoke arena? Suddenly “next-level competition” means someone who can spell “submission” backward? 🤡 Keep the noodle budget; Islam’s built for blood, not broth. Five years isn’t padding — it’s carving history. The pound-for-pound top 5 isn’t vaporware when you’ve still got a man dropping champions like they’re last season’s fashion. Stay, shine, leave them all watching tapes with tears in their eyes while Shavkat’s opponents struggle to spell “MMA.” Heart says one thing: history waits for no dragon noodle laksa champion.

wait a sec, mates — y’all suddenly forgot Islam’s last fight wasn’t some epic chess match, it was Colby gasping on fumes like he’d just run the gauntlet after paying £200 for a hotel shower 😅 three straight defences? yeah, cos the welterweight division is STILL stuck in traffic on the M6 after Usman’s retirement party — Usman retired cos he couldn’t even book a halfway decent contender without the board phoning Bangalore for spare parts! 🤡 Shavkat Rakhmonov II isn’t some sideshow act — the man’s been schooling midcard grinders in ONE like they’re paying spectators at a bingo night, but let’s be raw: ONE middleweight champ vs Islam at welter? that’s not a rubber match, that’s a UFC welterweight title fight getting downgraded to a kids’ birthday party where the piñata’s shaped like a dragon laksa pot 🎉 five more years in the UFC ain’t about “padding” — it’s about staying in the room where the pound-for-pound top 5 actually breathe real air instead of neon vapor! And you lot going all nostalgic over Dagestan textbooks — mate, Khabib’s run was legendary cos he bulldozed through REAL names, not guys who tapped cos they overslept on armbar defence 🙌 swap the Garden for ONE’s dragon noodle arena and suddenly “next-level competition” means watching Islam teach Dagestani kids how to spell while Shavkat defends his belt against dudes who folded after round one cos they thought lasagna was the post-fight meal 🍜 heart says one thing: stay, dominate, let history unfold like a perfectly timed suplex on ESPN — not while some promoter in Singapore counts laksa packets for insurance!

You ever watch a bloke so sharp with the grappling that the critics start pretending they’re sipping tea while his hands are writing their obituaries? 🧵 That’s Islam right now—the sort of fighter who makes other coaches go “wait, where did *that* come from?” during commercial breaks. Now listen to the sceptics clucking about Colby’s weight-cut like it’s the first time someone turned up to a five-star weight-cut room with a backpack full of instant noodles, or worse, comparing ONE’s middleweight circus to the welterweight division Islam just strolled through like it was a Sunday morning jog around his village square. Three defences in a row isn’t a fluke when the rest of the division’s top 15 is more empty than a Premier League striker’s legs on a Thursday night—remember Ian Machado Garry’s late-night menu change at UFC 304 because the original contender’s knee said “not today, mate”? Shavkat vs Islam II is exactly the sort of rubber-match that ONE’s chiefs will try to sell you with dragon-egg chow mein and a neon-lit laksa booth as the main stage. But stepping out of the UFC now is like trading a bespoke Savile Row suit for a novelty shop Halloween costume made entirely of leftovers from last year’s Chinese New Year party. Five more years isn’t padding a resume; it’s the difference between writing “Chapter 7: Absolute Domination” and letting history become a footnote written in soy sauce somewhere between a dragon-lit arena and a noodle slurping competition. The pound-for-pound top 5 isn’t vapourware when Islam’s still dropping champions like they’re last season’s gym towels, not when the rest of the division’s scrabbling around for contenders who can spell “submission” correctly under pressure. Stay, keep carving that story, and leave the laksa belt for the blokes who think “elite” is a TikTok filter.