Former UFC champion Robert Whittaker selected Islam Makhachev over primeweight Georges St-Pierre in a hypothetical welterweight struggle.
Islam Makhachev achieved his lifelong aim of profitable a number of UFC world titles with a dominant win over Jacques Della Maddalena at UFC 322 earlier this month. Makhachev gained the UFC welterweight championship and regained the No. 1 spot within the pound-for-pound rankings.
As Makhachev begins his welterweight title reign and prepares for a possible showdown with light-weight titleholder Ilya Topria, the brand new UFC welterweight champion is already drawing comparisons to a few of the all-time greats. Georges St-Pierre and Makhachev’s subsequent opponent, Kamaru Usman, are thought of two of the best welterweights in UFC historical past.
The previous UFC champion believes Makhachev will choke the top-tier St-Pierre in the event that they conflict immediately.
Robert Whittaker: Islam Makhachev defeats top-notch Georges St-Pierre
In current episodes, MM arcade On the podcast, former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker picked Makhachev to defeat the top-tier St-Pierre in a hypothetical matchup.
“It is powerful as a result of GSP has a very good struggle to struggle Makhachev,” Whittaker mentioned of the comparability between St-Pierre and Makhachev.
“He places on a extremely good struggle. He is a bouncy, karate-like fighter. He likes to punch from outdoors vary, he likes to scramble, he has scrambling cardio and he has actually top-level jiu-jitsu. I actually suppose Islam would do nicely. If the match became a scramble-off and a wrestling-off, Islam would get by it higher simply because he is constructed for that.”
“(Khamzat) Chimaev would do the identical factor, however GSP used his full MMA toolbox,” Whittaker continued. “So he makes use of wrestling and grappling and finally stands up and circles your head, anxious a few takedown. After which he’ll take you again and do the identical factor. Islam, he’ll take you down and you may’t get again up.” (h/t MMA Junkie)
St-Pierre is a UFC Corridor of Famer who retired from combined martial arts after profitable the middleweight title from Michael Bisping at UFC 217.
