UFC Vegas 49: Winning is Difficult Enough
In a sport where "anything can happen," we need to stop constantly trying to diminish the value of victories
Islam Makhachev has won nine straight fights.
Only 12 fighters in UFC history have ever earned more consecutive wins that Makhachev has currently amassed inside the Octagon. Each one of them is a current or former UFC titleholder, save for Royce Gracie, who put together his streak before weight classes were a thing.
Only three fighters — Charles Oliveira, Alexander Volkanovski, and Kamaru Usman — have longer active winning streaks than Makhachev at the moment.
Given that Makhachev is already in such heady company and rare territory with his current winning streak, why is it that folks are eager to pre-emptively diminish his accomplishments and trying to qualify his efforts ahead of his clash with Bobby Green this weekend?
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Every victory counts.
They don’t necessarily carry the same weight, but they all count, and at a certain point, the fact that an athlete continues to win while still facing quality opposition has to take on a certain weight of its own, because just winning is difficult enough.
If that weren’t the case, there wouldn’t only be a dozen fighters that have won 10 or more consecutive fights inside the Octagon and only 15 more that won eight or nine straight.
Not all winning streaks are equal — the eight-fight run Michel Prazares amassed between November 2015 and November 2018 is not the same as the eight-fight run of success that Valentina Shevchenko has enjoyed since moving to flyweight — but since we all know how difficult it is to string together victories in the UFC, especially as an athlete continues to move further up the divisional hierarchy, we need to do a better job of recognizing the difficulty of the task itself and stop constantly searching for ways to “Well, actually…” such an accomplishment.
Makhachev’s current run and impending bout with Green this weekend is a perfect example.
When the news broke that Green was stepping in for Beneil Dariush, MMA Twitter was alight with “… and now he’s going to get a title shot off short-notice wins over Dan Hooker and Bobby Green.”
While Makhachev hasn’t fought the kind of freakish schedule that someone like Dustin Poirier or Max Holloway has kept over the last several years, his overall strength of schedule during his current nine-fight winning streak is still pretty good. It includes wins over steady veterans like Nik Lentz and Gleison Tibau as he was rebuilding following his lone career loss to Adriano Martins, a fight against Arman Tsarukyan that was tougher than expected at the time, but has aged extremely well, and three straight stoppage wins last year over Drew Dober, Thiago Moises, and Hooker.
The opponents he’s beaten during this run have a combined 81-55-2 record inside the Octagon (with two No Contest results), good for a .579 winning percentage, which is quite respectable.
But it’s not just about the numbers though — the ones next to the opponents’ names or lining their records; sometimes you can just see in the performances that something special is taking place.
Makhachev caught Dober on the upswing at the start of last year, meeting him at UFC 259 in March when the Nebraska native was coming off three straight stoppage wins, including back-to-back finishes of lightweight hopefuls Nasrat Haqparast and Alexander Hernandez. He dominated from the outset and submitted Dober in the third. Seven and counting.
Then he squared off with Moises, who was also coming in on a three-fight winning streak, having beaten Michael Johnson, Green, and Hernandez. He was an ascending fighter with a slick ground game, a number next to his name, and a well-earned reputation as a tough out for just about anyone. Makhachev patiently navigated the first three rounds before submitting the Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt in the fourth. Eight and counting.
And then he fought Hooker, who took the fight only a couple days after dispatching Haqparast with a month to prepare for the contest in Abu Dhabi. The standout grappler from Dagestan marched into the Octagon and snatched up a kimura before the midway point of the opening round, forcing Hooker to tap. Nine and counting.
Regardless of the circumstances of those fights or the overall records of those opponents, they were all in the midst of very good stretches and Makhachev handled each and every one of them with ease, finishing all three fights.
In a sport where anything can happen and anyone can get caught, and where we’ve seen innumerable examples of athletes fighting down to their competition, overlooking the competition, coming out flat or being unable to rise to the challenge before them, Makhachev has remained laser-focused through his last nine fights and kept stacking positive results.
He’s done exactly what has been asked of him at every turn, delivering increasingly impressive performances as he’s continued to move forward in one of the deepest, most competitive divisions in the sport, and yet there are still people that want to “Well, actually…” his run of success and will do so with even more vigorously if he should push it to double digits this weekend by dispatching Green.
Moreover, why is it that we constantly pretend like the fighter coming in on short notice is the only one dealing with any challenges?
Makhachev spent six or eight weeks getting ready for Rafael Dos Anjos, but then was given a month to prepare for Hooker, a taller, rangier fighter with more power and a completely different approach. The same goes for this weekend as he shifts from Dariush to Green.
At a certain point, his continued success against an ultra-competitive slate of opponents has to be enough.
We can’t keep moving the goalposts in order to diminish someone’s success.
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Tony Ferguson went on a similar run to the one Makhachev is currently on, putting up a dozen consecutive victories and claiming an interim belt, but he never got the chance to fight for the undisputed title.
That’s an historical error that cannot be erased or corrected, and it’s one that shouldn’t be duplicated with Makhachev either.
Justin Gaethje is next in line and currently slated to face Charles Oliveira for the lightweight title this spring.
If Makhachev wins this weekend, he should face the winner; it really shouldn’t even be a discussion, at least not from a merit standpoint.
Dustin Poirier is coming off a title fight loss and seems focused on trying to secure a fight with Nathan Diaz, while Dariush is injured, which means he’s out of the running for the moment. Everyone else is behind the streaking Makhachev at the moment, and if you want to argue there are better financial options out there — like having Conor McGregor fight for the belt despite one win in the last five-and-a-half years (come summer) — I would have to wonder why you’re more interested in seeing the UFC making as much money as possible rather than watching the best fights possible, because a bout between either Oliveira or Gaethje and Makhachev is a more competitive affair than pitting McGregor against any of those men.
What’s ironic is that there are folks that want to argue both sides of this stuff — that want to see merit valued over marketability, but who will then turn around and question whether Makhachev has “really done enough” to merit a championship opportunity?
Yes, he has.
A dozen fighters in UFC history have won 10 or more consecutive fights inside the Octagon.
Save for Gracie, all of those winning streaks included championship fights, so why should Makhachev have to continue doing more in order to qualify?