UFC 330 went down on Saturday at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia. The event featured 12 fights and eight finishes, making for a very exciting card overall, though the two title fights at the top of the bill weren’t exactly thrilling.
Let’s take a look at the biggest storylines from the stacked card:
Islam Makhachev sets UFC win-streak record
In the headliner of UFC 330, Islam Makhachev defeated Ian Machado Garry via unanimous decision to successfully keep the UFC welterweight title in his first title defence.
This fight was a much more difficult title bout for Makhachev than the previous one that he won last year at UFC 322, when he first claimed the title against Jack Della Maddalena. In that fight, Makhachev took down his foe at will. But this time around, Machado Garry made Makhachev work hard for the takedown, and the Irishman damaged the champ on the feet.
However, Makhachev landed a massive head kick in the second round to stun Machado Garry, who was never truly able to recover and get back into the fight.
With the victory, Makhachev set the UFC record for the longest win streak with 17 in a row, breaking the previous mark that he co-held with Anderson Silva.
Now that Makhachev has won his first welterweight title defence, he will likely be matched up with either Michael Morales or Carlos Prates in his next fight. While Machado Garry was a tough challenge for Makhachev, both Morales and Prates may be even harder matchups for the champion since they both possess legit KO power.
Mackenzie Dern successfully defends title
The co-main event saw UFC women’s strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern defeat Canada’s Gillian Robertson via unanimous decision to defend her title.
The fight was not the most enthralling, as Dern essentially took Robertson to the ground and held her in top position for five rounds. But, in all, it was enough to get her the win.
Now that Dern has gotten her first successful title defence out of the way, look for the UFC to match her up against former champion Zhang Weili for her second defence at 115 pounds.
A Pennsylvania native, middleweight Dustin Stoltzfus was a huge underdog in his main-card fight against Mansur Abdul-Malik, but he defied the odds with an incredible upset victory.
Although most analysts thought Abdul-Malik would dominate the fight with both his striking and grappling, it was quite the opposite. Stoltzfus was better everywhere, eventually sinking in the fight-ending rear-naked choke in the second round for the upset win.
Given Stoltzfus was a 5-to-1 underdog, this was quite an against-all-odds win for him, and one few saw coming.
