NEWARK, N.J. – Islam Makhachev continued to live up to his longtime promise Saturday with a UFC 302 main event win. Makhachev (26-1 MMA, 15-1 UFC) was in a Fight of the Night thriller with Dustin Poirier (30-9 MMA, 22-8 UFC), but kept chasing a submission even into the final round and finally tapped the former interim champion with a D’Arce choke to defend the lightweight title at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. Afterward, the talk from various broadcast booths, both during the live event and after the card was over, was that Makhachev had sealed the deal as MMA’s pound-for-pound current top fighter. But UFC CEO Dana White begged to differ. Although White long has lauded former lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov as one of the all-time pound-for-pound greats, and regularly has praised Nurmagomedov’s lifelong friend and teammate Makhachev as his proverbial second coming, the UFC head said someone else is atop the pound-for-pound list right now: heavyweight champion and former light heavyweight champ Jon Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC).
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No surprise: Jon Jones stands by Dana White’s claim he’s MMA’s all-time P4P great – MMA Junkie