Islam Makhachev
The biggest post of the day came straight from @MAKHACHEVMMA, and it read like a retirement countdown with a dare stapled to it. “My next fight is one of the last in my career,” he wrote on X, before taking aim at the chatter around his options: “They say Prates is too dangerous for me and Morales is too good for me.” His answer was to ask for the best of the two and “prove to the world once again who is the best in world.”
This is the stuff I live for. A guy announces the end is near and, instead of picking a soft landing, he grabs the two names people swear are bad matchups and says pick one, actually, pick the scarier one. That post pulled more than 73,000 engagements, which tells you fans clocked the stakes immediately. When a fighter says he only has a few left, every booking decision suddenly matters, and Makhachev just made it a lot harder for anyone to hand him a tune-up without looking ridiculous.
Josh Thomson
Former fighter @THEREALPUNK quoted Makhachev’s post and went straight at Dana White’s own talking points. Thomson recalled White’s line that a fighter has “earned the right to call his shots” and asked whether that applies to the man he called the “#1 P4P fighter Islam Makhachev.” Then he threw the haymaker: “He’s literally taking the opposite approach of Jon Jones who’s Dana’s GOAT.”
View post on X
That’s a spicy comparison, and Thomson knows exactly what he’s doing by dragging Jones into it. The argument writes itself: if the boss lets one legend cherry-pick, the guy asking for the hardest fight available deserves at least the same courtesy. Expect this framing to follow Makhachev around until his next opponent is announced.
Sean Strickland
@SStricklandMMA posted a single line with zero context: “You all cyber bullied Tim Kennedy into getting shot......” Six periods. No explanation, no follow-up in the post itself.
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Strickland’s X account runs on chaos fuel, and this is a classic example: one sentence, maximum confusion, and a trailing ellipsis that does a lot of heavy lifting. The post didn’t say what happened or when, so I’m not going to fill in the blanks for him. What I’ll say is that Strickland has a gift for making you reread a tweet three times and still not know whether he’s joking.
Jake Paul
@jakepaul tagged @MostVpromotions and promised “The game’s not over. Christmas Eve in Dubai. Checkmate ♟️” The post doesn’t name an opponent or spell out the event.
View post on X
So what we’ve got is a date, a city and a chess emoji, which is about as Jake Paul as a teaser gets. He loves a holiday spectacle and he loves a cliffhanger, and he’s stacked both here. Christmas Eve in Dubai is the one concrete detail, so circle it and wait for the reveal.
Katsunori Kikuno
Japanese veteran @kikunodaretsuyo marked a birthday with a long, warm post that opened “45歳になりました。” He thanked people for their messages, joked that he’s started enjoying hijiki and now prefers harami over fatty kalbi, and admitted old injuries are aching all over.
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The best part is how sincere the rest gets. He thanked his body for sticking with him after years of abuse, thanked his parents and ancestors, and said martial arts still has him feeling like he’s getting stronger with age. He also gave shout-outs to his dojo and kids’ karate class communities. Swapping kalbi for harami at 45 is the most relatable fighter confession of the week.
Ben Askren
@Benaskren was fired up about wrestling, writing “KYLE DAKE makes another world final!! This guy is timeless 👊👊👊”
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Askren cheering on elite wrestling is about as surprising as rain in Seattle, and the all-caps tells you how much he means it. Calling Dake timeless is the heart of the post, since Askren is pointing at longevity at the highest level of the sport he came up in.
Jiri Prochazka
@jiri_bjp checked in from what he called his “5th week here in this heat,” adding “So, just Smile and continue ⚡️” He also plugged a blog interview with “more adventurous talking” and signed off with “STRENGHT/HONOR - GOD BLESS 🙏” and his #LETSKEEPTHEPOWERBURNING tag.
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Prochazka posts like a samurai writing in a travel journal, and I mean that as a compliment. Five weeks in the heat with a smile on his face is a very Jiri way to describe a grind. The typo in STRENGHT is the cherry on top, and honestly he’s earned the right to spell it however he wants.
