By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch Senior Columnist
UFC 330 was this past weekend and featured a lot of exciting fights, including two title fights, but one was an all-time stinker. Who won and who lost? Let’s get to the rundown.
UFC 330
GOOD- Esteban Ribovics stops Edson Barboza
Ribovics is all over Barboza from the start. Ribovics is tearing into Barboza, who can only retreat and survives the first round. The second round begins with more of the same. Ribovics traps Barboza against the fence and hammers him with elbows before he starts punching him repeatedly until the referee is forced to jump in to stop the fight a minute and a half into the second round.
Ribovics improves to 16-3 while Barboza drops to 24-15 and has lost 4 straight fights. Good win for Ribovics.
GOOD- Dustin Stoltzfus submits Mansur Abdul-Malik
They’re trading kicks early before they start mixing in some punches. They keep trading until Stoltzfus gets a takedown. Stoltzfus moves to full mount and nearly locks in a few different submissions but the first round ends before he can. The second round begins with Abdul-Malik getting a takedown and working some ground-and-pound before they get back up. Stotlzfus gets the fight down and locks in a rear-naked choke to force the submission about four and a half minutes into the second round.
Stotlzfus improves to 17-8 while Abdul-Malik drops to 9-2-1. Good win for Stoltzfus.
GOOD- Jalin Turner vs. Kaue Fernandes
The action starts immediately with Turner crushing Fernandes with a powerful left hook that drops him. Some follow-up punches seal the deal and force the referee to jump in to stop the fight thirty-nine seconds into the first round. Wow.
Turner improves to 16-9 while Fernandes drops to 11-3 and has his 3 fight winning streak snapped. Good win for Turner.
GOOD/BAD- Mackenzie Dern vs. Gillian Robertson
Dern was looking to defend her UFC Strawweight Championship for the first time here.
They start off punching before mixing in some other strikes. Dern gets a takedown and starts hunting for submissions but the first round ends. The second round begins with Dern getting an immediate takedown and they grapple for the rest of the second round. The third round starts with strikes being exchanged by both women. They both land some good punches before Dern gets a takedown and the third round ends.
The fourth round opens with Dern landing a few strikes before getting another takedown. Dern lands some short punches and the fourth round ends. The fifth round commences with some clinching on the cage as they trade strikes. Robertson gets a takedown and works a little ground-and-pound and this less than thrilling fight concludes. By no means an exciting fight but Dern had good strategy, it’s just that Robertson was able to stymy it enough to draw things out. We go to the judges to render their verdict.
Dern wins the decision to improve to 17-5 and has won 4 straight fights while Robertson drops to 17-9 and has her 5 fight winning streak snapped. Good win for Dern.
UGLY- Islam Makhachev vs. Ian Machado Garry
Makhachev was looking to defend his UFC Welterweight Championship for the first time here.
This fight sucked. It was so terrible that they should play it in torture camps. Makhachev landed a great head kick that dropped Garry in the second round but that’s about it.
I believe they broke the record for the fewest combined significant strikes in a five-round UFC Title fight. Makhachev had 22 significant strikes landed in 25 MINUTES. That’s less than one a round. Garry wasn’t much better, with 29 significant strikes. That’s terrible. Who wants to watch this stuff?
And it’s not like they were rolling and grappling and reversing this and that, they just weren’t doing anything. I see more people calling the Robertson-Dern fight boring than this. That’s some all-time glazing right there. Dern had a dozen more significant strikes than Makhachev and Garry combined. She had three times as many significant strikes as Makhachev did. And Robertson almost had more significant strikes than those two combined.
This fight is the living embodiment of bleh. It was awful. If this fight was happening in my backyard I’d close the curtains.
I could keep going but I’ve already spent enough time on this dreck.
Makhachev improves to 29-1 and has won 17 straight fights while Garry drops to 17-2. It’s a win for Makhachev.
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Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank. Thanks for reading and have a good day.
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