UFC 330 went down from the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and featured an intriguing main event between Islam Makhachev and Ian Machado Garry. If you only saw the scorecards (49–46, 49–46, and 48–47), you might assume it was another easy night for Makhachev, who was widely expected to dominate Garry easily. But that wasn’t how it went down at all.
The first round saw Makhachev struggle to take Garry down, and it didn’t get any easier from there. By round three, Garry used Makhachev’s
own momentum to faceplant the Dagestani into the canvas before grinding back to his feet. There was no Jack Della Maddalena style wilting on display. Garry only got more confident as the fight went on, while Makhachev’s face got more bruised and his breathing became deeper (watch the highlights here).
Makhachev’s legendary ground control faltered in this fight, but was still functional enough to earn him the victory. But the performance from Garry was good enough to make the commentary team question how Makhachev would fare against even bigger welterweights like Michael Morales or Carlos Prates.
Garry’s handiwork was very visible on Makhachev’s face following the fight. The elbows to the forearms and punches to the liver left no marks but undoubtedly had an impact. While Islam won the control game, Ian did a good job of beating the champ up.
So what, though, right? Winning is what matters, and Makhachev won tonight. But his aura of invincibility just took a hit, and it’s no longer a given that Islam will effortlessly grind the entire welterweight division into the canvas like he did with JDM. It’s at times like this that we’re reminded why Khabib is still considered such a strong GOAT candidate despite his relatively short reign: the man never bled in the octagon, not once.
Tonight in Philadelphia, Ian Machado Garry made Islam Makhachev bleed. He made him look human. He made him look beatable.
