Philadelphia, the site of August’s UFC 330 event – Source: Unsplash
Seventeen straight. That’s the number now etched next to the name of Islam Makhachev after his unanimous decision win over Ian Machado Garry at UFC 330 on August 15 at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, a 49-46, 49-46, 48-47 verdict that pushed him past Anderson Silva’s 16-fight win streak — a record that had stood untouched since 2013. A second-round left high kick out of the clinch put Garry down early and set up a heavy ground-and-pound sequence that looked, for a moment, like it might end things right there.
It didn’t. Garry got back up, and what followed was five rounds of a challenger refusing to go away and simultaneously refusing to go in for the kill.
Garry’s Missed Opportunity
After a strong round three from the challenger, Makhachev’s face was marked up, his right side visibly worked over by punches Garry had been landing all fight. He looked tired in a way he rarely looks tired. Truth be told, the champion looked there for the taking, and a seismic upset that the pre-fight betting odds never saw coming looked to be well and truly on the cards.
Online MMA odds providers made Garry a +375 outsider before the contest got underway, but had he poured it on in the championship rounds, he could well have snapped Makhachev’s record-breaking winning streak, and we could have a new welterweight champion of the world. Instead, and at the start of round five, Garry did something nobody watching could quite believe: he opened round five by walking over and hugging the champion.
Dana White couldn’t get past it. Not that night, not in the days since. “I think Ian is a talented guy,” White told reporters at the post-fight press conference. “If he had even an ounce of killer instinct, in that fifth round, you don’t come out and hug and shake hands… That shit drives me crazy.” What made it land even harder was Makhachev agreeing with him. “Bro, I don’t understand,” the champion said. “This is a fight; we don’t have to hug each other every round. We’re going to war… I respect all my opponents, but Ian respects too much.”
Garry, for all his talent, may never get another crack at the title purely down to that exact moment at the start of the fifth. If he had any killer instinct at all, as Dana White himself said, then he might not have needed another crack, and he may already be the welterweight champion of the world. But he isn’t, and now, one of these three men could well be next in line.
Carlos Prates
Carlos Prates dropped a five-round decision to Garry back in April 2025, the kind of loss that could’ve buried a contender’s momentum for a year. Instead, “The Nightmare” ripped off a spinning-elbow knockout of Geoff Neal at UFC 319, stopped former champion Leon Edwards inside two rounds at UFC 322, and then, this past May in Perth, did something that changed everything: he finished Jack Della Maddalena, the exact man Makhachev dethroned for the welterweight title, in the third round. Now, he’s the number two ranked welterweight on the planet, and he is likely next in line for a 170-pound title shot.
He’s already told anyone who’ll listen what the plan is — beat Makhachev, then circle back for a rematch with Garry, then walk away from the sport entirely. No fabricated beef required. Is there a more logistically sensible next fight than Prates, given he’s already finished the very man Makhachev took the belt from? Whether he can actually pull it off is another question.
Michael Morales
Picture it: blood still fresh on the canvas at Madison Square Garden, Sean Brady laid out from a first-round TKO, and Michael Morales turning and pointing straight at Dana White cage side, demanding his shot right then and there. That’s not a fighter waiting his turn. The Ecuadorian has a perfect 19-0 record with seven straight UFC wins, five finishes, and he’s been building toward this moment with the calm of someone who genuinely believes it’s inevitable, even offering himself as a late-replacement option for Makhachev-Garry should the fight have needed one.
Can Morales’ size and reach really be the stylistic answer to a wrestler who’s now unbeaten in 17 straight fights? He’d need his frame and his jab to keep this at range and on the feet, because Makhachev’s wrestling against an undersized, less experienced grappler remains the single most dangerous matchup in the sport.
Ilia Topuria
This one hurts to write. Barely a year ago, Islam Makhachev vs Ilia Topuria was the superfight the world wanted to see. El Matador had starched both Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway to claim and defend the featherweight title, before stepping up in weight to campaign for Makhachev at lightweight. Makhachev vacated and moved up, and Topuria instead obliterated Oliveira to claim the vacant strap.
Since then, though, his aura has well and truly been extinguished. Back at UFC Freedom 250 on the lawn of the White House, Topuria dropped the 155-pound title to tenacious American veteran Justin Gaethje, who forced a brutal corner stoppage and handed El Matador his first-ever defeat.
But could that loss ultimately be a blessing in disguise? With the lightweight title no longer around Topuria’s waist, he is now free to make the step up to welterweight and gun for the superfight with Makhachev, even with his shattered aura. This one remains the long shot of the three, and both Prates and Morales would be livid if they were overlooked in favour of a debutant in the welterweight division. But still, money talks, and this is — or perhaps was — the fight the world wanted to see above all others.