Islam Makachev and the Real Winners and Losers from UFC 330

It was an important business trip for Islam Makhachev.

The two-division champ and UFC pound-for-pound elite headed to south Philadelphia on Saturday night to meet second-ranked welterweight contender Ian Machado Garry and take a shot at making octagonal history.

The 34-year-old Russian arrived having won 16 consecutive fights in the promotion since a loss to Adriano Martins in 2015, equaling the 16-fight run by Anderson Silva from 2006 to 2012 both before and during his middleweight title run.

No less an authority than UFC boss Dana White suggested before Saturday's fight that a Makhachev win over Machado Garry would put him "on the right path" to supplanting Silva (and Jon Jones) as the greatest fighter in UFC history.

Makhachev's bid for history was supported by a co-main event at strawweight, where champion Mackenzie Dern defended for the first time against veteran challenger and fourth-ranked contender Gillian Robertson.

B/R's combat team delivered an account of the card's definitive winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the app comments.

Loser: Fans of Jones and Silva

Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

Islam Makhachev reacts after a victory against Ian Machado Garry

It's getting a lot more difficult to deny Makhachev's claims, eh?

His unanimous five-round decision over Machado Garry, in which he had better than two minutes of positional control time in four of five rounds, was his record-setting 17th straight in the promotion, eclipsing Silva's record streak and giving at least some pause to those insisting Jones is without peer as the all-time best.

Jones had an official loss by disqualification in his 10th pro fight and never lost against in his final 20, though he had a KO victory overturned to a no-contest, clipping his longest UFC win streak at 13 straight.

A champion at both 205 pounds and heavyweight, he hasn't fought since KO'ing Stipe Miocic in the third round of their main event on the UFC 329 show in 2024.

Two judges gave Makhachev four of five rounds and the other gave him three. The winner scored seven takedowns and had better than 12 minutes of control time.

Critics will no doubt point to top welterweight contender Carlos Prates or unbeaten No. 3 contender Michael Morales—both of whom were shown on the big screen after Saturday's fight—as the next barometers for Makhachev, though Machado Garry came in having outpointed Prates and former champ Belal Muhammad in his last two fights.

Morales has one win over a fighter currently in the top 15, having finished fourth-ranked Sean Brady in one round in November, on the same night Makhachev defeated Jack Della Maddalena for the 170-pound title.

Makhachev was 1-1 in the UFC after a KO loss to Adriano Martins on the UFC 192 show in October 2015, but has recorded seven wins by decision, seven wins by submission and three wins by KO in his 17-fight streak.

He won the 155-pound title in 2022 and defended four times before moving up to beat Della Maddalena last fall.

"Mount Rushmore is a statue in South Dakota and there are only four slots," blow-by-blow man Jon Anik said. "But no conversation about the greatest in MMA would be complete without Islam Makhachev."

Winner: Making (Scottish) History

Charles Johnson made sure he didn't forget where he was.

Moments after finishing late sub opponent Eduardo Chapolin at 1:36 of the third round of their prelim bout, the St. Louis-based flyweight acknowledged the local crowd by ID'ing himself as a long-time fan of the city's wildly popular NFL team and belting out a few lines of the team's signature "Fly Eagles Fly" fight song.

He'd already won the gathered masses over with just the second submission by "Scottish twister" in UFC history, following Murtazali Magomedov's submission of Melsik Baghdasaryan on a Fight Night show in Las Vegas two months ago.

Johnson, who'd tapped out opponents by kimura, brabo choke and anaconda choke in a pro career stretching back 10 years, secured the rare victory amid a third-round scramble in which he tried to take Chapolin's back in a standing position—then wrapped his legs around the Brazilian's torso as Chapolin tried to escape, and wrenched the 30-year-old's head to the left to draw the surrender.

"Once I get my legs in," Johnson said, "it's over with."

Analyst Daniel Cormier, who'd called Magomedov's win from cage-side two months ago, insisted he saw it coming.

"I didn't know what it was," Cormier said, "I know what it is now."

Loser: Aggressive Refereeing

Blake Grice had a hard enough gig.

He was referee for a middleweight clash between Donte Johnson and Eric McConico that matched fighters with 10 KOs in their 19 combined pro wins.

And after just 98 seconds, the winner, Johnson, had two more victims on his record.

The former college football player at Minnesota Duluth scored his seventh KO in nine wins when a long left hand toppled opponent Eric McConico like a tree.

Then, as he pounced on the stricken McConico for a series of ground strikes, Johnson's left-handed follow through resulted in a hard elbow to Grice's jaw as the official jumped in to rescue McConico from further damage.

Grice slumped backward over Johnson's body as he pulled the winning fighter away, and the referee took a couple seconds to regather his senses before tending to McConico as Johnson began his celebration.

'Donte Johnson got two knockouts tonight," analyst Daniel Cormier said. "(Grice) got rocked."

Winner: Competitive Resilience

Three years ago, he was a deer in the headlights.

Three years later, he's been deemed a "great contender" by no less than Joe Rogan.

Brazilian Lucas Fernando wasn't quite ready for prime time while dropping a unanimous decision to middleweight Cesar Almeida in a Contender Series date in 2023, but, after another scorecard loss to Azamat Bekoev four months later, he's ready for much more.

Fernando has followed the skid with four straight wins, including two in a row upon moving to light heavyweight in 2025 and a third as a 205-pounder in his official UFC debut on Saturday night—a dominant third-round dispatch of Rafael Tobias in the early prelim closer.

Fernando, who stands 6'3" with a reach beyond 80 inches, pasted Tobias with hard strikes with both fists alongside powerful kicks to the calf, body and head.

His consistent battering of Tobias's left calf prompted his fellow Brazilian to switch to southpaw, which prompted Fernando to drive his right knee into Tobias's belly, forcing the stricken man to take a step backward before crumbling to the mat and drawing a wave-off from referee Keith Peterson at 1:10 of the third round.

Rogan called it "one of the most impressive UFC debuts I have seen in a long time" before suggesting to Fernando that he'd "automatically become a great contender" at 205 pounds.

When asked about his imminent future, Fernando leaned on the UFC matchmaking brass and said "I'm new on the job. Whenever they book the fight, I'll be ready to go."

Winner: Early Prelim Speculation

A wise man once said, "You've got to speculate to accumulate."

And in the case of UFC 330, you had to get started pretty early.

The 12-bout show got underway shortly after 5:30 p.m. with a -1300 favorite in Myktybek Orolbai going down via guillotine choke to +675 underdog Jeremiah Wells, and that upset was followed soon after by +120 underdog Neil Magny's second-round TKO of -145 favorite Ramiz Brahimaj.

Incidentally, $100 bets on both Wells and Magny, both welterweights, would have yielded a cool $595 in profit.

Things got back to chalk in the card's third fight, when -300 favorite Fernando beat +200 underdog Tobias by third-round TKO in the early prelim closer at light heavyweight.