Islam Makhachev And the Real Winners and Losers from UFC 284

This one was worth traveling for.

Though the UFC staff had to pack bags for a 19-hour flight to cover the 9,530 miles between Las Vegas and Perth, Australia, the significance of the pay-per-view main event that was produced upon arrival must’ve made the jet lag a bit more palatable.

Indeed, UFC 284 was topped by a lightweight championship bout between incumbent Islam Makhachev and rising featherweight title-holder Alexander Volkanovski, marking the first time in the promotion’s history that fighters ranked first (Volkanovski) and second (Makhachev) on the pound-for-pound list met in a fight.

Neither man had lost in a while either, with Makhachev having won 11 straight since UFC 192 in October 2015 and Volkanovski unbeaten in 12 fights with the company—including five title fights—and without a loss anywhere since his fourth professional fight in May 2013.

It was Makhachev’s first fight since winning the 155-pound title in October.

The announce crew of Jon Anik, Michael Bisping and Dominick Cruz was cage-side at the RAC Arena while colleague John Gooden worked the room with breaking news and features.

B/R’s combat team was in place as well to take in the action and compile a definitive list of the card’s winners and losers.

Scroll through to see what we came up with, and drop a comment with a take of your own.

Makhachev hadn’t lost in seven years. And he hadn’t been pushed in a while.

If nothing at all else, Volkanovski pushed him on Saturday night.

Though the popular Australian didn’t walk out as a UFC champ-champ thanks to a close but fair decision loss in the main event, he didn’t do anything to hurt his brand.

In fact, he seems more dominant in his own weight class now than he’d already been.

Given a 5-0 record in title fights at 145 pounds—and the gritty performance he put on against one of the sport’s most dominant champions—it’s difficult to envision any of the current crop of featherweights being anything more than a significant underdog in a subsequent title challenge.

Volkanovski arrived as the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, but exactly none of the remaining spots in the Top 15 were occupied by featherweights.

By contrast, Makhachev was No. 2 on the same list and had two other contenders in his weight class—Charles Oliveira (8) and Dustin Poirier (12)—within 10 spots.

But given Oliveira’s second-round tap-out when he faced the Dagestani last year, it’s no stretch to suggest Volkanovski could be worthy of the top-contender spot at lightweight in addition to his featherweight honors.

The incumbent champion earned two 48-47 cards and one 49-46 to get the verdict, getting Rounds 1, 2 and 4 from the first two judges and Rounds 1-4 from the third.

B/R agreed with the majority and had it 3-2 for Makhachev.

“It was a very good fight,” he said. ” I thought he was going to be easy on the ground. He wasn’t. I needed a tough guy and a tough challenge.”

Volkanovski’s 12-fight UFC win streak ended, as did a run of 22 straight since 2013.

“It was a fun fight. I could’ve capitalized a little more,” he said. “He didn’t respect my wrestling and grappling enough, and I didn’t respect his striking enough, either. Fair play to both of us.

“I’m a better fighter because of this. Featherweights, you better f–king watch out.”

Yair Rodriguez was on his back, with Josh Emmett hovering and looking to do damage.

Not exactly an enviable position for an MMA competitor.

But the world’s second-ranked featherweight was not only calm—he was effective.

Rodriguez patiently eluded Emmett’s tries to land a fight-altering shot and instead seized a decisive moment of his own, locking his aggressive foe into a triangle choke while flat on his back and squeezing long enough to draw a tap at 4:19 of the second.

The win not only lifted the proud Mexican native to 10-2-1 in the company, but it earned him the UFC’s interim title at 145 pounds while Volkanovski pursued greatness 10 pounds up the ladder.

Rodriguez left the cage to celebrate in the immediate aftermath of the win, hugging both of his parents before coming back in to accept the second-tier title belt.

“I’ve been practicing that submission exactly as I just did it,” he said. “I had one in one of my early fights [in March 2012]. I remembered that today, and I took advantage of that. The submission was there.”

Emmett’s aggression was in response to a prolonged volley of strikes on the feet, including a step-in right elbow that had the fifth-ranked featherweight reeling.

A follow-up jumping knee landed squarely on the side of Emmett’s jaw, but the momentum sent Rodriguez to the mat, where Emmett leaned in and tried to land a momentum-changing blow of his own.

Instead, he was on the short end of Rodriguez’s first UFC submission and the first loss via that method of his career.

“I was able to adjust and overcome the situation,” Rodriguez said. “And I’m happy for that. I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was a kid.”

It’s easy to disbelieve the prefight hype.

Some fighters arrive to the Octagon with so much fanfare that it’s difficult to see where fantasy ends and reality begins.

So you’ll not blame those who expected welterweight Jack Della Maddalena, who’d debuted in the UFC with three straight first-round finishes, to have some trouble with a guy like Randy Brown.

But it’s going to be awfully hard to justify such cynicism anymore.

Though he was facing tangible disadvantages in height, reach and footwork, Della Maddalena was able to corner his foe against the fence, land a looping right hand that rendered said foe senseless, and follow up with ground strikes until a rear-naked choke ending presented itself.

After just 2:13, it was over. And the hype machine was refueled for takeoff.

“I practice grappling, and as soon as he gave me the neck, it was done,” the 26-year-old Perth-based fighter said. “He gave me that.”

Brown had arrived with 16 wins in 20 fights and had won four straight since his last loss in August 2020, but Della Maddalena never looked rattled or unprepared for the moment.

“I thought it might take three rounds, and I’d beat him for 15 minutes in front of my family,” he said. “I was pumped. But this is my Octagon, and when I get in here, I’m as cool as a cucumber.”

It wasn’t a fight that excited everyone.

Neither Parker Porter nor Justin Tafa is likely to win a heavyweight title anytime soon, and they’d combined for a desultory five wins and five losses in 10 combined UFC appearances.

But just as people settled in to spit on the second bout of the PPV show, it was over.

And there’s a good chance the KO ending will have at least some viral staying power.

Barely a minute into the battle of two 260-plus pounders, the southpaw Tafa took advantage of an amateurish rush-in from Porter and landed a single straight left that decided things.

The shot landed directly on the chin, and Porter was already on his way down as the second half of the combination landed. Referee Jason Herzog waved things off as the stricken American crashed to his knee and rolled to his back.

The official time was 1:06 of the first, giving Tafa the fourth opening-round stoppage of his career and his third since arriving at the UFC in 2019. Porter has been finished in one round in all three of his UFC losses, including a submission and two KOs.

“If you reach, I’ve got to teach,” said Tafa. “That’s what happened.”

So you want to be an MMA fighter, eh?

A quick look at Jimmy Crute’s battered face might change your mind.

The Australian light heavyweight’s left cheek was swollen and reddened, and his right eye, in the words of Anik, was “mangled,” thanks to swelling and angry abrasions above and below.

And all he got to do was share a double hand raise at the end.

The seven-year pro walked through the striking hell proffered by opponent Alonzo Menifield and managed to get his thickly muscled foe into submission-chasing danger in the second and third rounds but had to settle for a draw in the opener of the PPV card.

“I wanted to come here and win, but Alonzo really surprised me with his strength and speed,” Crute said. “I was hurt, but I never didn’t know where I was.”

It looked far worse through the first five minutes as Menifield, who’d KO’d 10 of his 13 pro victims, strafed Crute with volleys of powerful lefts and rights and had him on the verge of a stoppage loss as referee Marc Goddard peered in.

Instead, Crute began stringing together in the second round what wound up as six takedowns in 12 tries and gassed Menifield to the point where the big man grabbed the cage to avoid another trip to the mat and was docked a scorecard point by Goddard.

Had it not been for that deduction, Menifield would have won a split decision. Instead, one judge gave Crute a 29-27 margin, and the other two made it academic with matching 28-28 verdicts.

“Let’s do it again,” Menifield said. “Me and him. And if we can do it here, that’d be amazing.”

Listen up MMA fans: Jack Jenkins is a rock star in the making.

The Melbourne-based featherweight strutted from the locker room to the delight of the early prelim crowd in Perth and looked comprehensively comfortable with the stage as he approached the Octagon for his official UFC debut.

He’d made waves with a win on Dana White’s Contender Series and arrived with a violent resume that had yielded broken legs for three of his last five opponents.

And though he wasn’t able to definitively add Don Shainis to that in-need-of-immediate-X-rays list, the 29-year-old did get the competitive job done by unanimous decision after a bruising and consistently entertaining three-round rumble.

The pair combined for 228 strikes and five takedowns across 15 minutes before Jenkins got the better judging end by two scores of 30-27 and one more of 29-28.

“Not bad for a one-trick pony,” Jenkins said, referencing a comment White made in his direction during his DWCS appearance. “He was so tough. But we got the win, and I’m coming up from here.”

He stated an aim for a fight on U.S. soil in May or June of this year after becoming the first of five Australian fighters to perform on the show’s prelim portion.

New Zealand’s Shane Young lost a unanimous three-round decision to unbeaten American import Blake Bilder in the night’s second fight before Jenkins won to close out the early prelims and fellow Aussies Jamie Mullarkey (unanimous decision) and Josh Culibao (submission, Round 2) followed suit in the featured prelim bouts.

Kleydson Rodrigues, though, was having no part of the homeland revelry.

In fact, the 27-year-old Brazilian flyweight worked in the cage as if he couldn’t wait to catch the first plane back to South America.

A champion in the Brazilian-based Jungle Fight promotion, Rodrigues was intently focused on violence from the opening tap and didn’t let up until he’d scored a TKO over Shannon Ross, his Australian foe who was making his UFC debut after a Contender Series appearance.

That TKO, by the way, occurred in exactly 59 seconds.

“This dude is going to be a real problem at flyweight, I would think,” Anik said.

He was certainly a problem for Ross, who was driven back to the fence by his opponent’s persistent aggression before being badly wobbled by a left-right combination. Rodrigues followed with a multipunch volley, including shots to the body, that crumpled Ross to his knees and prompted a quick intervention from referee Matt Wynne.

It was his eighth win in 10 pro fights, his seventh finish and his first UFC triumph after he’d dropped a split decision to CJ Vergara at UFC 274 last May.

The UFC-debuting Ross lost for the seventh time in 20 pro fights, and countryman Tyson Pedro was also beaten via unanimous decision by Modestas Bukauskas at light heavyweight.

“That was a young man surging toward that much sought-after first UFC victory,” Bisping said of Rodrigues, “and he got it in style.”

As upset alarms go, this was akin to a five-alarm fire at 2 a.m.

Brazilian lightweight Elves Brener traveled to Australia with a 13-3 record that included 11 submissions, but each of the three losses had occurred over his last seven bouts, and he was debuting in the UFC against an octagonal vet with five wins in eight company bouts.

Didn’t matter.

Though rugged Russian striker Zubaira Tukhugov arrived as a prohibitive -600 favorite according to DraftKings, it was his less-heralded foe who had his hand raised by split decision following their card-opening 15-minute scrap.

Brener earned the verdict thanks to scorecards of 30-27 and 29-28 in his favor, with one judge awarding him all three rounds and the other giving him the first and third. The dissenting judge saw it 29-28 in the other direction, with Tukhugov winning Rounds 1 and 2 before Brener took the third.

The surprise winner held a 24-17 striking advantage after the first round and earned a 35-20 margin in the third following a second round in which he was outlanded 36-23. Neither man got the fight to the floor despite numerous attempts, with Brener winding up 0-for-3 on takedown tries while his opponent missed on all four chances.

At +450, the win put Brener among the bigger underdog winners in UFC history.

Main Card

Islam Makhachev def. Alexander Volkanovski by unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, 49-46)

Yair Rodriguez def. Josh Emmett by submission (triangle choke), 4:19, Round 2

Jack Della Maddalena def. Randy Brown by submission (rear-naked choke), 2:13, Round 1

Justin Tafa def. Parker Porter by KO (punch), 1:06, Round 1

Jimmy Crute drew with Alonzo Menifield (29-27, 28-28, 28-28)

Preliminary Card

Modestas Bukauskas def. Tyson Pedro by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)

Josh Culibao def. Melsik Baghdasaryan by submission (rear-naked choke), 2:02, Round 2

Kleydson Rodrigues def. Shannon Ross by TKO (punches), 0:59, Round 1

Jamie Mullarkey def. Francisco Prado by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Early Preliminary Card

Jack Jenkins def. Don Shainis by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)

Loma Lookboonmee def. Elise Reed by submission (rear-naked choke), 0:44, Round 2

Blake Bilder def. Shane Young by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)

Elves Brener def. Zubaira Tukhugov by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 30-27)

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