For months, the collapse of Islam Makhachev vs. Ilia Topuria lived in the murk where most failed superfights go to die. Each man blamed the other. One side floated an injury, the other denied it. Fans were left to pick a villain based on which fighter they already liked. Now Makhachev has done the one thing that cuts through that fog: he put a price tag on it, roughly $20 million.

Speaking to Russian MMA journalist Adam Zubayraev, Makhachev said the UFC offered him the bout, he accepted on the spot, and then it died the next morning when Topuria's camp asked for roughly $20 million, according to MMA Fighting. "I got a call in the morning and was offered the fight," Makhachev said, per MMA Fighting. "I agreed without asking for anything. They offered me the fight themselves, with a higher purse. Then the next morning they called back and said that Topuria wanted something like $20 million. He was turned down."

This reads less as a story about who ducked whom and more as a contract negotiation, told from one side — and it reframes the whole saga. By Makhachev's account the fight fell apart over money, which is a more ordinary and more revealing reason than fear.

What the two camps actually agree on

The useful thing here is that the opposing camp doesn't really dispute the shape of the story. Topuria's manager, Malki Kawa, laid out his own timeline in a social media post after Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje was announced, and he confirmed a salary dispute was part of why the Makhachev fight died, per MMA Fighting.

Kawa's version: he called the UFC the Monday before to ask whether Topuria was being used on the card, got a no, then got a Wednesday call saying Topuria could fight and the choice was Gaethje or Makhachev. "I immediately said, 'Shit, we want Islam,'" Kawa said, per MMA Fighting. Then came a number. "They said here's the number, you have a choice, I said, 'I want Islam.'"

So both sides agree money was central. Where they split is on what the number meant. Makhachev's read, again via MMA Fighting, is blunt: Topuria's team turned down the Makhachev money but accepted comparable money to fight Gaethje. "He said that the money wasn't enough for them to fight Islam, but for the same money, under their contract, they agreed to fight Gaethje," Makhachev said. Kawa, for his part, also claimed Makhachev was never a realistic option, and Topuria has said separately that he believes the UFC simply didn't want to make the fight, without explaining why.

That last point matters for honesty's sake. We have one detailed, numbers-attached account from Makhachev, partly corroborated by Kawa on the existence of a money dispute, and contradicted by Kawa and Topuria on the conclusion. Treat the $20 million figure as Makhachev's claim, not settled fact. Nobody has produced the term sheet.

Makhachev, to his credit, anticipated the skepticism. "Some would say it's not true, but I can show you the chats with my manager as we had calls and texts," he said, per MMA Fighting, describing how his manager Ali Abdelaziz told him the White House purse would be higher and that he replied "It's even better." He also says UFC CEO Dana White confirmed his account, while noting that Topuria's own manager admitted the offered money wasn't enough. "Ilia may say whatever he wants, but it was his manager who negotiated," Makhachev said.

There's also the injury subplot. Makhachev has been linked to a lingering hand issue, and Kawa has leaned on that narrative, but Makhachev flatly denies it kept him out. "When [Topuria] claims that I pulled out because of the hand injury, it had nothing to do with the hand," he said, per MMA Fighting. "I said 'yes' right away."

The fight that happened instead, and how it ended

Here is the part that gives the whole dispute a strange afterglow. The fight Topuria chose, the one his side reportedly accepted comparable money for, did not go his way.

At the UFC White House event on June 14, Topuria defended his lightweight title against interim champ Gaethje in a unification bout and lost. The result is in our gold dataset: Gaethje beat Topuria by KO/TKO in the fourth round on June 14, 2026, the first defeat of Topuria's professional career. So whatever the merits of taking the Gaethje fight over the Makhachev fight, the sporting outcome was the worst-case version. The undefeated aura is gone, and the superfight against Makhachev now carries an asterisk it didn't have a week ago.

For the record on Makhachev's side: he won the welterweight title by unanimous decision over Jack Della Maddalena on Nov. 15, 2025, becoming a two-division champion, and he hasn't fought since. That's verified in our gold data and squares with Bloody Elbow's report, which described the win as his crowning as the 11th two-division champ in UFC history. He's next booked to defend welterweight against Ian Machado Garry in the UFC 330 main event on Aug. 15 in Philadelphia.

Makhachev's pivot to padel

While the superfight argument plays out in interviews, Makhachev has quietly been spending his money somewhere other than the cage. He told Zubayraev's YouTube channel that he's put more than half a million dollars into a padel business, per Bloody Elbow.

"We invested over 50 million [roubles, approximately $685k]," Makhachev said, per Bloody Elbow. "Around 60 including all the courts. We ordered the best courts." He framed it as something other than a profit grab. "I looked at it, and honestly, I didn't start it to make a huge profit," he said. But he also reported it's working: "Now, praise be to Allah, it's working, fully booked. Sometimes even I want to play and it's busy. I book in advance."

And he's thinking bigger. Makhachev told Bloody Elbow he's already fielded franchise requests to open in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Dubai, with plans to expand across the Middle East and Central Asia. For a 34-year-old champion whose own mother has publicly pushed him toward retirement, building a sports-leisure brand that runs without him in the cage is a logical hedge. Most fighters get to that kind of move late, once the purses have dried up. Makhachev is making it while he's still pound-for-pound at the top.

"Small purses" and the Usman Nurmagomedov question

The padel money and the $20 million claim aren't unrelated threads. They both point at the same conviction running through everything Makhachev is saying right now: that fighter pay is the real lever, and that the UFC keeps it short.

That conviction shows up most pointedly in his read on Usman Nurmagomedov, his teammate and the PFL lightweight champion who becomes a free agent on Aug. 1. Makhachev thinks Nurmagomedov should eventually make the move for competitive reasons. "To fully realize his potential, he needs tougher opponents," he told Zubayraev, per Bloody Elbow. But he's openly doubtful the UFC will pay enough to make it happen soon.

"In PFL, they pay much more. The UFC doesn't like paying that much," Makhachev said, per Bloody Elbow. "If Usman signs, I think [he will get] half the purse he gets in PFL. The UFC won't pay that." His advice was to wait. "Let the UFC make him an offer he can't refuse. But if they offer a small purse, what's the point?"

That lines up with how Nurmagomedov himself is framing the decision. He told MMA Fighting that money sits right behind legacy on his priority list. "Of course, money is important," Nurmagomedov said, per MMA Fighting. "Most important things, first of all, it's legacy. Second, it's money. I think this is two inside the one." He also refused to say a bad word about the PFL, where he's one of the faces of the promotion, and stressed he's leaving negotiations to Abdelaziz while he focuses on his July 31 title defense against Archie Colgan in New York.

PFL CEO John Martin, for his part, told Home of Fight he'd love to keep Nurmagomedov but won't block a UFC move, adding that the company hasn't engaged in serious contract talks yet, per Bloody Elbow.

The through-line

Put the three stories side by side and a single argument emerges, made by a man at the peak of his earning power. Makhachev is telling you the UFC wouldn't meet Topuria's number, that it won't meet his teammate's number, and that he's already diversifying his own money out of the sport entirely. Whether the specific $20 million figure is exactly right, we can't confirm. What's harder to wave away is the pattern he's describing, and the fact that the one fighter who reportedly took the smaller, safer fight just got knocked out for his trouble.

The superfight isn't dead forever. Topuria still exists, Makhachev still rules welterweight, and a defeat sometimes makes a fight easier to book. But the romance is gone. By Makhachev's telling, this fight was always going to come down to a number, and the number, at least once, was too big.