"He's Got No Chance — In Wrestling Or Padel": Makhachev Accepts Covington's Charity Challenge And Doubles It To $200K

Colby Covington challenged Islam Makhachev to a $100,000 padel match for charity. The UFC welterweight champion has accepted — and raised him. Speaking in Tashkent this week, Makhachev offered to put up another $100,000 of his own, and told Covington he can choose the arena: the padel court, or the wrestling mat.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — The challenge was unusual. The answer was pure Makhachev.

"No problem. We can wrestle, we can play (padel), and I would add $100k more," Makhachev told Red Corner MMA in Tashkent, where he was attending the Sambo World Championships. "I think he's got no chance. Neither in wrestling nor in padel. But I am not against this idea."

Covington issued the challenge on Submission Radio, knowing exactly which door he was knocking on. Makhachev is a devoted padel player who regularly shares clips of himself on the court, and Covington — who spotted a padel court behind him during the interview — built the offer around it: a doubles match, each man free to recruit any professional player in the world as his partner, with $100,000 donated to charity.

"You get your partner, whatever pro you want in the world. I'll get a pro," Covington said.

With Makhachev's addition, the proposed pot now stands at $200,000 for charity. Beyond the two verbal commitments, nothing exists: no date, no venue, no organizer. Whether the two ever meet on a court or a mat remains to be seen — but the idea did not come out of nowhere, and it did not start with Covington.

Days before the acceptance, Makhachev's manager Rizvan Magomedov had publicly opened the door to his fighter competing outside the Octagon, naming Covington — alongside Khamzat Chimaev and Kamaru Usman — as exactly the kind of established wrestler who could test the champion in a wrestling match. Covington, it turns out, was listening, and aimed his offer at the champion's hobby as well as his craft.

The American, 38, has built himself a second career since retiring from the UFC in May. He won the interim welterweight title back in 2018, beating Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 225, but fell short in all three of his challenges for the undisputed belt, and closed his MMA career at 17-5. Covington is now the inaugural cruiserweight crossover champion of Real American Freestyle, the wrestling promotion where he beat Arman Tsarukyan to take the title in July and defended it against Belal Muhammad by technical fall in September. His next defense is already booked: Khamzat Chimaev, in the main event of RAF Abu Dhabi on November 14. It has not all gone his way — earlier this week, Raul Rosas Jr. submitted him inside a minute in a submission-only match under the Hype FC banner — but nobody in the crossover scene is working a microphone harder.

Makhachev, meanwhile, has time on his hands, and that is part of the story. The 29-1 champion — who submitted Charles Oliveira to take the lightweight title in 2022 and beat Jack Della Maddalena for the welterweight belt last November, and now rides 17 straight UFC wins, the longest streak in the promotion's history — last defended his welterweight belt against Ian Machado Garry in August. His return has since been pushed back: Carlos Prates and Michael Morales will fight for an interim welterweight title at UFC 336 in January, and Makhachev is expected to face the winner in the second quarter of 2027, after Ramadan. The delay has drawn public criticism from Dana White, and Makhachev has added to the uncertainty by posting that his next fight is "one of the last in my career." A champion openly weighing side quests is a champion whose calendar, for once, has room in it.

So the strangest callout of the month now has an answer. A retired welterweight with a wrestling belt and a microphone offered the most dominant champion in the sport a charity game of padel. The champion doubled the money, offered to wrestle instead, and gave his opponent no chance in either sport. All that is missing is everything else — a date, a venue, and someone to organize it.