Professional Fighters League (PFL) staged in first event of 2025 last Saturday (Jan. 25) inside Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as “Road to Dubai” featured a dazzling Lightweight title fight that saw division king, Usman Nurmagomedov, escape with a majority decision win over Paul Hughes in a back-and-forth brawl (see it again here).
Naturally, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Islam Makhachev, were in town to corner Usman for his pivotal title defense. While there, the former and current Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 155-pound champions of the world met up with none other than living legend, Fedor Emelianenko.
Talk about a championship picture.
Between the three Russian combatants, they combine for a 96-8 record and 19 world title fights in major mixed martial arts (MMA) organizations. Fedor — who still looked to be in great fighting shape — retired from active competition following his technical knockout (TKO) loss at the hands of Ryan Bader at Bellator 290 in Feb. 2023, while Khabib called it a career following his submission win over Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 in Oct. 2020.
Makhachev, meanwhile, is fresh off a first-round drubbing of Renato Moicano at UFC 311 a week ago (see it here), to surpass Nurmagomedov with four straight title defenses. As far as what’s next for the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, that is a little unclear at the moment, though he did recently tease a move up in weight class.
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