UFC 330 results: Makhachev grinds down Machado Garry in Philly

Two champions kept their belts, four fighters walked out of Philadelphia with a hundred grand each, and the pay-per-view part of UFC 330 was the least interesting thing on the card. That is not a complaint about the main event so much as a description of it. Islam Makhachev did to Ian Machado Garry exactly what everyone said he would do, which is a strange thing to call anticlimactic, and the fun was all downstairs where a plus-money welterweight, a middleweight nobody wanted and a lightweight on his second life took turns wrecking the board.

Photo: Время спорта / CC BY 3.0

Start with the number that decided it. Makhachev landed 7 takedowns from 15 attempts and held 12:30 of control time in a 25 minute fight. Before Saturday, Machado Garry had been taken down 6 times total in 11 UFC appearances. Shavkat Rakhmonov got him down twice on ten tries. Belal Muhammad shot seven times and landed nothing. Makhachev doubled Garry's career total in one night and never looked like he was working hard at it.

The judges saw 49-46 (Michael Bell), 49-46 (Sal D'Amato) and 48-47 (Eric Colón), which is where it gets interesting. Fans scoring the fight live on the public cards had it 48-47 as the modal result, giving Garry the third round by 97 percent and the fourth by 80 percent. Round four is the split: Makhachev landed 3 significant strikes and held 3:05 of control, Garry landed 7 of 11 and looked like the busier man. Two of three officials rewarded the man on top. Whatever you think of that, it is the criteria working as written, and it is worth remembering next time a fighter is told to "be active off his back."

That is 17 straight wins for Makhachev, no defeats since 2015, and a first defense of the welterweight title he took from Jack Della Maddalena in November. It is also his career high for takedowns in a fight, past the 5 he put on Dustin Poirier at UFC 302. For Garry, the decision streak that carried him to a title shot ran into the one man who does not need to out-point anybody.

On to the rest of it:

Mackenzie Dern is a real champion now, and she nearly threw it away in the fifth. She banked 10:48 of control, 65 significant strikes and 4 takedowns through four rounds, then got outworked so thoroughly in the last five minutes that 91 percent of public scorecards gave the round to Gillian Robertson. It did not matter: 49-46, 49-46, 48-47. Dern's first title defense is done, she is 12-5 in the UFC, level with Rose Namajunas on 12 wins inside the all-time top ten for women in the promotion, and she did it against a challenger who had four more UFC fights than she does.

Photo: Canal Faixa Preta / CC BY 3.0

Robertson deserved better than a footnote. Twenty-one UFC fights, 14 wins, fourth on that same all-time list behind Jessica Andrade, Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko. She lost four rounds to a better striker and then took the fifth from a champion who had nothing left. Book her against a top five name immediately.

Jeremiah Wells produced the upset of the UFC year and did it from underneath. He was taken down four times, controlled for 6:20, out-landed 26 to 16, and submitted Myktybek Orolbai at 1:24 of round three anyway. Wells closed around plus 900 on the consensus line. He is 6-2 in the promotion and has now won two straight after a long stretch out of the cage, and he did it in the first fight of the night, which nobody who tuned in at 9pm will ever know.

Dustin Stoltzfus was 4-7 in the UFC and had lost two in a row. He submitted Mansur Abdul-Malik in the second round after landing 43 significant strikes and 2 takedowns on a fighter the market had at around minus 700. This is the third time Stoltzfus has been written off and the third time he has answered with a finish. Middleweight is thin. Give him someone ranked.

Jalin Turner needed 39 seconds. A knockdown and 9 significant strikes and Kaue Fernandes was done. That is back to back first round knockouts for Turner after he went 1-3 across 2023 and 2024, and both of them came against opponents who were supposed to be the next thing. He picked up his Performance bonus and walked.

Esteban Ribovics landed 63 significant strikes on Edson Barboza in less than seven minutes. The stoppage came at 1:32 of round two. Barboza is now on a four fight losing run, his last win was October 2023, and he has been in 33 UFC fights. There is no version of this where the promotion should be booking him against a 27 year old with 126 strike attempts in him.

Neil Magny won his 25th UFC fight and did it by knockout in round two against Ramiz Brahimaj, in his 38th appearance. We wrote last week that he opens cards nobody watches and holds a record nobody can take. He opened this one and extended it.

Chidi Njokuani beat the numbers and the eye test both. He took Joel Álvarez 30-27, 30-27, 29-28 from around plus 270, and the public cards backed the officials with 21 of 24 scorers on his side. Álvarez had been the pick almost everywhere.

Tresean Gore over Vicente Luque, 30-27, 30-27, 29-28. Gore is now 8 UFC fights deep with a decision win over a 26-fight veteran. Luque has been in too many wars to be taking these, and I would rather see him matched down than matched again with a younger man who wants to grapple.

Donte Johnson knocked out Eric McConico in 98 seconds in his third UFC appearance, and Charles Johnson submitted debutant Eduardo Chapolin at 1:36 of round three for the fourth Performance award of the evening. Lucas Fernando got his first UFC win by third round stoppage over Rafael Tobias in a fight the market had the wrong way round.

Four Performance of the Night awards and no Fight of the Night, which is the promotion's way of saying the card had finishes but no five round brawls. Full bonus history is here, and the money is broken down here.

So what does Makhachev do now? He is the welterweight champion, he has cleared the lightweight division, and he just beat the best striker anyone could put in front of him without ever having to strike with him. The interesting question is not who is next at 170. It is whether anyone in either division can make him fight standing up.