First: Ilia is very smart and calculated.
Once he accepted that he might need a TS contender fight @155, the obvious opponent to call for was Arman, not Charles.
He used Dana's pettiness to his favor because he knows Charles (he's great, don't get me wrong) is the path of least resistance.
That's an elephant in the room no one seems to care about.
Second: Islam was in camp prepping to fight Ilia, IFW is a month and a half away and JDM is off a war.
Why don't fight him anyway?
It's anticlimactic leaving 155 without rematching Arman, but it's not his fault.
Now, if Ilia wins vs Charles he will keep running his mouth, plus there's the whole Georgia vs Dagestan grappling thing.
Khabib knew that, from a sports standpoint only, fighting Conor didn't make much sense. DP and Gaethje were tougher opposition, he's said so several times.
But it was the bigger (biggest) fight and he made a huge point out of it.
I think (and IMHO it's true) that Islam believes Arman is a bigger challenge than Ilia.
Sure, Ilia could catch Islam. And Conor could've caught Khabib. "Anything can happen in MMA" and all that.
But a smaller, orthodox pocket boxer, even as skilled and well rounded as Ilia, is a favorable matchup for Islam.
A fight that he should win most of the times, IMHO and, at the end of the day, another LW defense: 5, raising the bar even more cementing himself as the best LW ever.
And being undeniable to the naysayers after beating the #3 P4P (#2, actually, Jon Jones is there because... Dana, again).
Plus, he would debut @170 tied with AS for the longest *official* win streak at 16, relieving some pressure.
So my take is that the weight cut is becoming more and more grueling.
To the point of leaving that question mark on his LW legacy before going though it again.
Once he accepted that he might need a TS contender fight @155, the obvious opponent to call for was Arman, not Charles.
He used Dana's pettiness to his favor because he knows Charles (he's great, don't get me wrong) is the path of least resistance.
That's an elephant in the room no one seems to care about.
Second: Islam was in camp prepping to fight Ilia, IFW is a month and a half away and JDM is off a war.
Why don't fight him anyway?
It's anticlimactic leaving 155 without rematching Arman, but it's not his fault.
Now, if Ilia wins vs Charles he will keep running his mouth, plus there's the whole Georgia vs Dagestan grappling thing.
Khabib knew that, from a sports standpoint only, fighting Conor didn't make much sense. DP and Gaethje were tougher opposition, he's said so several times.
But it was the bigger (biggest) fight and he made a huge point out of it.
I think (and IMHO it's true) that Islam believes Arman is a bigger challenge than Ilia.
Sure, Ilia could catch Islam. And Conor could've caught Khabib. "Anything can happen in MMA" and all that.
But a smaller, orthodox pocket boxer, even as skilled and well rounded as Ilia, is a favorable matchup for Islam.
A fight that he should win most of the times, IMHO and, at the end of the day, another LW defense: 5, raising the bar even more cementing himself as the best LW ever.
And being undeniable to the naysayers after beating the #3 P4P (#2, actually, Jon Jones is there because... Dana, again).
Plus, he would debut @170 tied with AS for the longest *official* win streak at 16, relieving some pressure.
So my take is that the weight cut is becoming more and more grueling.
To the point of leaving that question mark on his LW legacy before going though it again.
