Usman Nurmagomedov could soon be plying his trade in the UFC, according to Ariel Helwani.
Nurmagomedov (21-0) successfully defended his PFL lightweight title when he submitted Alfie Davis (20-6-1) in the main event at PFL: Road to Dubai on Saturday. The Dagestani standout remains unbeaten as a professional and with his PFL contract winding down, Helwani has been pondering a possible future where the 27-year-old trades the Smart Cage for the UFC Octagon.
“I do wonder how he would do in the UFC,” Helwani said on The Ariel Helwani Show. “I think he would do much better than Patchy Mix. Is he the best of the best at 155 in the UFC? Maybe top five. If you're wondering about his future, he has one fight left, I'm told. He has one fight left, or end of (20)26. Meaning if he doesn't get that one fight in by the end of 2026, he's a free agent. And it doesn't matter, I'm told, if he's champion or not.”
Nurmagomedov became the Bellator lightweight champion in 2022 when he defeated Patricky Pitbull, then went on to defend the title against Brent Primus, Alexander Shabily, and Paul Hughes. However, the win over Primus was later overturned to a no contest after Nurmagomedov failed a drug test, resulting in an 18-month suspension.
After the PFL merged with Bellator and subsequently disbanded the Bellator brand, Nurmagomedov defeated Hughes again to win the inaugural PFL 155-pound title in Dubai last October. He has since reaffirmed his dominance over the division with a victory over Davis, the 2025 PFL Global Tournament winner.
With Nurmagomedov’s training partner Islam Makhachev having vacated the UFC lightweight title last year in order to move up to 170 pounds, Helwani believes the time could be right for a move to the UFC.
“There's no championship clause (in his contract), or anything like that,” Helwani said. “I would imagine they're going to want to try to re-sign him. But as we've talked about, now that Islam has moved up to 170, you would think, ‘all right, the coast is clear at 155.’ Does he want to follow in the footsteps of his mentors and family members? There's no one (left) at 155 (in the PFL) for him to compete with. It wouldn't make sense. But he is, in many respects, one of the faces, I would say, top two or three faces of PFL.
“He should probably want to stick around because they're probably going to pay a hell of a lot of money for him to stick around, just like they did with Dakota Dicheva. But perhaps he feels like he's been there, done that, and he's going to move on. That's going to be one of the big stories to watch as we try to decipher what is the future of the PFL with this rights deal coming up at the end of 2026.”
