Where he stands
Islam Makhachev is 18-1 across 19 fights on our tape. He's on a 17-fight winning run. Our rating has him at 1808 — it moves with every result and weights who he beat, so a win over a ranked opponent counts for far more than one over a debutant. A record on its own says very little in this sport — two fighters at 12-3 can have faced completely different opposition, which is exactly the gap the rating is built to close.
He wants the fight on the mat
Islam lands 3.2 takedowns per 15 minutes and threatens 0.9 submissions in the same span. That's the profile the model reads first, because grappling decides where a fight happens and where it happens decides most of the rest. His matchups turn on one number more than any other — the opponent's takedown defense. Against 85%-plus defense the same fighter looks ordinary; against a striker who can't stop it he looks unbeatable.
Age matters more here than in most sports
Islam is 35. MMA decline tends to arrive suddenly rather than gradually — durability goes before output does, so a fighter can look sharp on the stats right up until he doesn't. The model factors age in, and it's one of the places we'd trust the number least on any individual fight.
How the model reads him
Islam's number is a matchup output — rating against rating, then style against style, plus age and layoff — graded on the fight board like every other call. Our tape covers UFC and Contender Series bouts from 2015 on, and one punch can settle a fight the better fighter was winning.
The full method is on the fight board, and every published call is graded on the report card.