Ислам Махачев UFC-гийн түүхэн дэх хамгийн олон дараалсан ялалтын дээд амжилтыг тогтоолоо

UFC 330 is in the books, and Islam Makhachev remains the welterweight champion of the world.

On Saturday, Makhachev became the fifth fighter in UFC history to successfully defend a title in multiple weight classes, eking out a unanimous decision win over Ian Machado Garry. With the victory, Makhachev set the record for most consecutive wins in UFC history (17) and cemented himself as one of the best fighters of this generation, but the uninspiring performance also raised questions about Makhachev’s future at 170 pounds.

Following UFC 330, MMA Fighting circled the wagons to discuss what to make of Makhachev’s win, and the rest of the big stories coming out of this weekend.

1. What do we make of Islam Makhachev’s win over Ian Machado Garry? What does this do for his legacy?

Heck: This was EXACTLY the fight I expected — Machado Garry had a much better chance to win than most gave him credit for, and if he doesn’t, it will be super close. Bingo! I scored it 48-47 Makhachev, and even after re-watching the fight, I feel even more confident in that score. Round 3 was clearly Garry, and in the way we score fights these days, I just don’t see a world where you can score Round 4 for Makhachev when he inflicted absolutely no damage whatsoever.

That leads to the second question, which is quite complex and has multiple answers. One, the man knows how to win fights; despite my belief — and I agree with Dana White on this — the challenger kind of let him off the hook a bit in Round 5. Makhachev is, at worst, a top-10 all-time fighter, unquestionably, but his run is super strange at lightweight.

But here’s the biggest takeaway I have: Makhachev is going to have issues with Carlos Prates, and Michael Morales might be an absolute nightmare for him. This win certainly adds to his legacy, but if he beats Prates and (especially) Morales, he’s getting an officer’s flash on his vest over at the big table at UFC M.C.

Lee: Heading into the fight, I said if Makhachev ran through Garry then that would greatly enhance his all-time P4P cred in my eyes. That didn’t happen, but given that Makhachev figured out how to solve a matchup that was a nightmare on paper, I’m still impressed. Oh, and he’s also the first guy to win 17 straight UFC fights, which is just absurd.

Makhachev still doesn’t crack the top 5 (Jon Jones, Georges St-Pierre, Fedor Emelianenko, Demetrious Johnson, Jose Aldo, and Anderson Silva) of my most accomplished fighters ever, but he did strengthen his case for possibly being the most skilled fighter I’ve ever seen, and the one I’d pick in any hypothetical P4P matchup. One thing is for sure, I’m even more invested now in his welterweight journey, especially if it involves Michael Morales.

Martin: It’s a great win and further cements Makhachev as one of the greatest of all-time.

Ian Machado Garry isn’t the most popular fighter in the world — if you need further evidence of that, just listen to the Philly faithful shouting “f*ck you, Garry” throughout the fight. But adored or not, Garry is a damn good welterweight, and Makhachev became just the second person to hand him a defeat in his career. While it seems like the top-ranked contenders are focused on staying out of bad positions against Makhachev, the Russian wrecking machine always seems to find a way to ply his trade in all of his fights.

It wasn’t the most exciting affair, but you can probably count on one hand the number of times Garry has been involved in a thrilling fight. That’s just not his game.

As far as legacy goes, Makhachev broke the record for the most consecutive wins in UFC history with 17 in a row, which is now one more than Anderson Silva’s streak. That’s a remarkable feat, and it’s tough to see anyone breaking that any time soon, especially if Makhachev goes on to defend his title a few more times. Makhachev is absolutely in that GOAT conversation, but how the rest of his career plays out truly determines if he’s one of the best or the best. Let the games begin!

Meshew: The takeaway is that MMA is hard. Winning 17 fights in a row is hard (it’s why no one has ever done it before). Moving up in weight classes is hard. Fighting Ian Machado Garry is hard. It’s all just hard.

I’m not here to tell you that the main event was fun. It absolutely wasn’t. But man, it was damn impressive. This is what so much of the fanbase wants from the best fighters — move up in weight and chase greatness! — but now they’re mad when doing so makes Makhachev less dynamic than he was. Huh, who’d have thought he might not run over people the same way he did at lightweight?

Makhachev cleanly beating Garry is a great and historic win, and easily the greatest champ-champ title defense in UFC history. And because it’s now clear that Islam won’t be able to run through welterweight in the same fashion he did at lightweight, it makes his future title defenses all the more intriguing.

Regardless, this is one of the greatest fighters of all-time. We should just appreciate what we have, while we have it.

2. Where does Ian Machado Garry go from here?

Heck: First off, credit to Machado Garry for making me look good in my read of this fight. But the short answer is he’s fighting the winner of Sean Brady vs. Gabriel Bonfim when those two gentlemen battle it out at the World’s Most Famous [Meta] APEX.

Long answer: the man is supremely skilled, and the way he tapped into the fan base to generate heat by turning up his personality to pro wrestling levels was smart, but it’s reached the finish line. He needs to go out there and start trying to hurt people in the octagon again. Wins matter. I get it. He’s gained a little momentum with this loss, and now, “The Future” needs to hop in the time machine a touch and find — as Dana White correctly put it — that “killer instinct” again.

Lee: Outside of my crazy On to the Next One suggestion that he somehow ends up paired up with Max Holloway in 2027 (I swear this made sense at the time), Garry has plenty of options. Most importantly, nothing I saw on Saturday told me that Garry can’t be UFC champion someday if he continues on his current trajectory.

I’m curious as to what Garry’s timetable is for a return, because there’s a good chance he takes the rest of the year off, rolling the dice that the welterweight landscape doesn’t shift too much in his absence. Assuming no more than a six-month layoff, he probably does end up with the Bonfim-Brady winner, as Mike suggested.

Martin: Right back in the deep end of the welterweight division. Garry proved once again that he can hang with the best in the world. The real key for him moving forward is getting over that hump after losses to Makhachev and Shavkat Rakhmonov. Garry may not have become champion, but he put on a valiant performance, largely shut down Makhachev’s incredible grappling and even managed to steal a round or two on the scorecards.

Ideally, Garry rests up and heals from this loss and immediately calls for a fight against Michael Morales or another top-ranked welterweight contender. Maybe he even convinces the UFC to rebook the fight against Rakhmonov (assuming he ever gets healthy again), except this time do it as a five-round main event. He may have to win a few to get back to title contention, but Garry’s stock didn’t drop very much from that performance. If anything, he just showed he deserved that opportunity, and at 28 years old, he’s got plenty of time to get back there again.

Meshew: You know how the cure to wrestling inability is “2-3 years in Dagestan and forget”? Instead of that, let’s send Garry to live with a pack of hyenas for 2-3 years so maybe he can learn how to hurt people.

Garry is like the character Leech from X-Men — his superpower is that he negates other superpowers. And while that’s all well and good, Leech isn’t really a combat specialist. Preventing people from doing what they want is only half the battle. You’ve gotta, you know, hit them, too. Garry needs to remember how to do that, or he’s doomed to a life with the Morlocks.

3. Where does Mackenzie Dern rank among strawweights all time?

Heck: I’ll put her at No. 5, but there’s certainly room to rise.

There’s just no world where you can put her above Zhang Weili, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, or Rose Namajunas. The tricky ones are Carla Esparza, who is a two-time champion and simply holds better wins overall than Dern does, and Jessica Andrade, who also won gold. So I’ll throw “Cookie Monster” at four since she has as many title wins, including a win over Namajunas (even though the fight was quite horrible), and Dern at five.

Another title defense for Dern moves her up — especially if she beats Zhang, which unequivocally should’ve been her first defense, and now has to be her next. That cloud just hangs over her head for too long.

Lee: Outside the top 5. Dern stans, back off!

I swear, I’m not just bitter because the ever-improving Dern denied my home and native land its first champion since Georges St-Pierre. Sincerely, congratulations on a quality title defense. But we can’t reasonably place her above Zhang, Jedrzejczyk, Namajunas, or Andrade (who absolutely smoked Dern when they fought), and I wouldn’t rank her above Esparza either. She also has losses to current contenders that further muddy the waters.

The good news for Dern is her story is nowhere close to being finished, and if Zhang is out of the picture, that opens up a considerable window for the standing strawweight queen to build her case for all-time greatness.

Martin: Probably top 10, but she still sits on the fringe of that list, if we’re being honest.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Zhang Weili, Rose Namajunas, Carla Esparza, and Jessica Andrade all have better overall resumes, which were built over years and years of competition in the UFC. Make no mistake, Dern is good, but she had some really ugly losses on her record before becoming strawweight champion. Amanda Lemos, Yan Xiaonan, Marina Rodriguez, and Amanda Ribas all hold wins over Dern, and none of those fighters have ever held championship gold in the UFC.

If Dern wants to rocket up that list, she needs to call out Zhang Weili and settle it once and for all who is the best strawweight in the UFC. If Dern passes that test, then she’s absolutely in that top five. But right now, the strawweight division isn’t exactly thriving, and that’s hurting Dern’s chances to be considered an all-time great at 115 pounds.

Meshew: I’ve seen enough. I’m ready to call her the GOAT. I remember when people were wondering if Usman was the GOAT, because he beat Jorge Masvidal twice. But Dern just beat Robertson, who beat Michelle Waterson, who beat Karolina Kowalkiewicz, who beat Rose Namajunas, who beat Zhang Weili.

The math is clear. What are you gonna do, argue with science?

4. Aside from the main event, who was the biggest winner at UFC 330?

Heck: Jeremiah Wells, come on down!

I truly can’t believe he was the only Philly guy to compete on this card. But boy did he deliver in one of the biggest upsets in a year full of them, stopping Myktybek Oralbai in a fight he was badly losing in the third round.

I also loved his “I’ve had my final fight, here are my gloves… unless I get a top-15 opponent next” promo. Spectacular night for the soon-to-be 40-year-old.

Lee: Edson Barboza, for retiring in a packed house with an appreciative crowd and the knowledge that, truly, he gave us everything he had.

“Everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn’t end,” as they say, and Esteban Ribovics did us all a favor by showing Barboza no mercy and respectfully sending him off with a proper drubbing. Barboza then had the chance to let out all of the emotion that comes with having fought for 16 years in the UFC and nearly 40 times as a pro.

For a long stretch there, Barboza was my default answer for which lightweight I’d pick to win any pure standup battle, and my man sent out plenty of warriors on their shields. It’s only fitting he went out the same way, and that he got to say a proper farewell to the fans.

And we’ll always have this:

Martin: You gotta love a guy like Charles Johnson, who is never going to have the best record, but he’s always game for a fight, and he loves putting on a show. Some might call Johnson’s resume a little frustrating considering he has finishes over current UFC flyweight champion Joshua Van and top 10 ranked contender Lone’er Kavanagh while also falling to names like Ode Osbourne, Cody Durden and Alex Perez. It’s that inconsistency that’s going to keep Johnson from reaching the top of the flyweight division, but I’m not even sure that matters.

If the UFC calls, Johnson is going to answer. If the UFC needs someone to face a fast-rising star struggling to find an opponent? Johnson volunteers. If the UFC has to find somebody willing to fly halfway around the world for a fight? Johnson starts packing his bags. That’s just the kind of guy he is, and that’s going to keep him employed as long as he wants to fight in the UFC. Pulling off a Scottish twister submission at UFC 330 is just the icing on the cake, and thankfully the promotion rewarded him with a $100,000 bonus.

Meshew: MOVSAR EVLOEV IS FINALLY GETTING HIS SHOT AT THE FEATHERWEIGHT TITLE. EVEN IN THIS MESSED UP UFC WORLD, THERE IS STILL SOME JUSTICE OUT THERE FOR THOSE OF US INTERESTED IN MERITOCRACY.

5. Who was the biggest loser at UFC 330?

Heck: Without question, it’s Gillian Robertson.

To her credit, getting to a title shot is incredible. She has overachieved in the sport, but she did it by making some massive strides in the gym and finding a home at strawweight. I saw a perennial top-15 fighter, but not a title challenger.

But quite honestly, I thought she had very little chance in this fight, and I was stunned that so many people were picking her that it actually had me questioning my sanity for a second. Outside of maybe holding Dern down — which I didn’t think she could do for long periods of time — Dern is just better at everything, everywhere the fight would go. If they fought 100 times, Dern would win all of them. It’s just a horrible style matchup.

Which leads me to the even tougher news: This was her only shot at the title. Well, unless Zhang Weili wins it back and Robertson goes on another big winning run — but even so, if that matchup gets made, it will go even worse for her. And the worst news of all: Din Thomas, her longtime coach, hung her out to dry publicly. Basically, he told the world that her performance made him want to stop coaching fighters. Just a tough night for Robertson, overall, but hopefully she can keep going in there and adding to her records, because that is still pretty damn awesome.

Lee: Philly didn’t have a lot of chances to break out the boo birds Saturday, but they were in full force during the final prelim bout between Chidi Njokuani and Joel Alvarez. That’s already a tough spot to be in, with viewer attention spans usually hitting a wall in anticipation of the main card starting, but Njokuani and Alvarez didn’t help themselves with a dull fight that went to the scorecards.

I’m giving extra dubious distinction to Alvarez, though, for employing a bizarre strategy that saw him engage in a kickboxing match with Njokuani, who is known for strictly striking. Alvarez knows a thing or two about submissions (17 of his 23 wins!), but at no point did he seem interested in mixing the martial arts. Worst of all, Alvarez was supposed to find new life at 170, but has now put on back-to-back duds against Njokuani and Yaroslav Amosov, and his lone win was a decision victory over a past-his-prime Vicente Luque.

This guy was once a sleeper contender; what the hell happened?

Martin: Mansur Abdul-Malik has transformed from one of the brightest young prospects in the sport to almost an afterthought following his second straight loss in a row. Abdul-Malik came into the UFC guns blazing with three straight wins — all by knockout or submission — and it looked like he had all the makings of a future top 10 fighter. But then he suffered a knockout loss to Yousri Belgaroui back in March, and then he fell to Dustin Stoltzfus by submission at UFC 330.

Abdul-Malik is only 28, so he’s got time to improve and come back better, but the luster around a potential player at middleweight has definitely been knocked off with these past two fights, with the latest being the toughest pill to swallow because he had a chance to bounce back on a major card like UFC 330. Instead, he’s going home with his second straight loss and the knowledge that one more setback could get him bounced off the UFC roster.

Meshew: Mike mentioned it, but Din Thomas — who I like as a person — might wish he had that one back. The man basically trashed Robertson on live TV, for no real reason. A huge misstep by a guy who is usually regarded well.

6. Give your final, brief review of UFC 330.

Heck: A very, very generous C+. The card was make-or-break based on the title fights, and they were… well, what they were.

Lee: Solid card with enjoyable upsets and two title fights I’ll probably never watch again, and somehow this might have been the most memorable moment.

Martin: Islam Makhachev makes history, but the two title fights were underwhelming. Thankfully, the prelims paid off.

Meshew: Islam Makhachev is special. Maybe not in the ways everyone wishes he was, but what he’s doing is unprecedented, and we’re lucky to watch him.