UFC 322 will be remembered for all the statement-making results.
Madison Square Garden is one of combat sports’ biggest stages. Show off here and the world will take notice. Islam Makhachev, the UFC’s newest two-division champion, and Valentina Shevchenko, the undisputed flyweight queen, did just that.
They weren’t the only ones, either. Fan favorite Carlos Prates is back in the championship picture, as is Michael Morales, who was not intimidated by veteran Sean Brady, getting a first-round knockout and the respect of New York.
Makhachev said he was going to be better at 170 pounds, but of course I wanted to see it before believing it. What is a fighter going to say? That he’s going to be worse in a new weight class? Makhachev told me a few weeks ago he felt he was about 60% to 70% of himself at lightweight because of the drastic weight cut. That sounded feasible, but really? Would he really be 40% better against bigger competition? I’d say the answer, after one fight, looks like a yes.
Makhachev destroyed Jack Della Maddalena’s front leg with kicks inside two rounds. He took JDM down with an efficiency just as high as he did at lightweight. He looked strong, well-conditioned, healthy all week. It wasn’t the most inspiring performance by Della Maddalena — I expect even he will say that at some point — but that doesn’t take away from how good Makhachev looked. He’s going to be hard to beat at welterweight, which we kind of anticipated.
What we weren’t sure of is whether he would actually be better than he was at lightweight, and now I feel good saying he is. The No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world just got better. We really had been only seeing Makhachev at a fraction of himself. For that reason, I’m very glad he’s welterweight and will not be heading back any time soon (probably ever). This is Makhachev’s best weight class. — Brett Okamoto
Go ahead and file this one away in the They Have Weight Classes for a Reason Dept. But that does not tell the whole story of Shevchenko’s dominant women’s flyweight title defense against Zhang Weili. Size made a huge difference, for sure, but it was not the only reason that Zhang, who vacated the strawweight title to take on this challenge, had no success.
The most significant difference-maker truly was the smarts of Shevchenko.
