Despite recording a career-defining win, Islam Makhachev received some criticism after UFC 322.
Makhachev beat Jack Della Maddalena in one-sided fashion to win the welterweight title in one of the most highly-anticipated matchups of the year.
With a 100% takedown success rate and over 19 minutes of control time, the stats on this occasion tell the story of the fight effectively.
However, after getting his hand raised, Makhachev was labeled as “boring” by Ilia Topuria in his critical assessment of the main event on November 15.
Some fans have now run with a similar narrative which seemingly disregards several key aspects of the Russian’s career, the fight, and the sport overall.
Who should Islam Makhachev fight next?
Islam Makhachev’s track record speaks for itself
I am certainly not going to argue that the main event of UFC 322 was an entertaining watch that I’ll revisit out of pleasure because it wasn’t.
That being said, Islam Makhachev being branded a boring fighter is recency bias to the highest degree.
One fairly dull unanimous decision doesn’t erase the fact that he’s been involved in some incredible title fights when he hasn’t finished his opponents with relative ease.
This feels more like parts of the fan base waiting for any opportunity to hit Makhachev with the “boring” stamp rather than a fair reflection of how entertaining he has been.
Sure, this was his least entertaining bout for quite some time, but moving up a weight class hasn’t erased what he did as lightweight champion.
Makhachev did look for several submissions in the fight and while he didn’t get particularly close to them, Jack Della Maddalena deserves credit for this.
That being said, Makhachev himself said in his post-fight press conference that he believes the defending champion became too focused on not being submitted rather than getting back up during the fight.
Della Maddalena’s team were clearly aware of this as they called for him to take more risks and even referenced not being afraid of the challenger’s D’Arce choke after he spent a lot of time in a relatively safe position.
That’s not putting all of the responsibility on ‘JDM’ because Makhachev could have done more and he admitted that it was his corner’s decision to control the fight on the ground rather than engaging in more striking.
It’s still an important factor regardless.
Again, neither champion should receive the title of being a boring fighter for one dominant performance where their opponent offered very little in response.
In Makhachev’s case, there were even some attempts to produce a submission and some significant damage done with his striking.
The main event of UFC 322 ended up being a fight that very few are going to watch back but to call Makhachev boring as a result is simply not a fair reflection as he’s proven to be the exact opposite of this in high-stakes fights against top opposition on several occasions.
This was an example of a boring fight and a matchup that didn’t live up to expectations because it wasn’t competitive in any sense of the word.