Two numbers in UFC lore don’t get talked about enough: 11 and 16.
The first, in this case, points to the 11 straight successful defenses of the UFC flyweight title by the one they call “Mighty Mouse,” Demetrious Johnson.
And 16, that’s the number of fights in a row Anderson Silva won from 2006-12, the high-water mark for sustained success from fight to fight, both on the way up and while perched atop the heap.
Whelp, so much for 16. Islam Makhachev erased it Saturday night in Philadelphia.
The Dagestani dynamo tallied consecutive victory No. 17 at UFC 330, defeating first-time welterweight title challenger Ian Machado Garry via unanimous decision to break a tie with Silva and strip the Hall of Famer of one helluva distinction in promotional lore.
If consistency is key, then Makhachev (29-1, 18 finishes) is the key master.
There’s not a lot of smoke and mirrors to his strategy. Pressure leads to takedowns; takedowns lead to grappling dominance; grappling dominance leads to suffering.
You know it’s coming. Makhachev’s opponent knows it’s coming.
You – yes, you, the reader – do just about as good a job of stopping it as does his opponent.
If Machado Garry (17-2, eight finishes) was considered to have any basic advantage in this one it was going to be from distance. That notion dissipated when left high kick from Makhachev knocked down the Irishman in the second round, blowing the frame wide open for the champ.
At least the unsuccessful challenger can hang his hat on a more competitive effort against Makhachev than was put forth by Jack Della Maddalena in November, when the Aussie lost his belt in a noncompetitive, survival-mode decision loss. He offered intelligent resistance to Makhachev’s tried-and-true offensive gameplan and even got in some third-round licks and fourth.
Nonetheless, the belt remained around the waist of Makhachev, with scores of 49-46, 49-46 and 48-47 in his favor.
Not all win streaks are created equal, but any that include a healthy helping of championship fights earn extra cachet. In turning aside the Irishman in Philly, Makhachev has won seven championship fights in a row: a lightweight title victory, a four title defenses, a welterweight title win and the ensuing defense.
Makhachev’s scalps include No. 1 lightweight Charles Oliveira, No. 1 featherweight Alexander Volkanovski (twice) and No. 1 welterweight Della Maddalena. Eight times, world top-10 competition couldn’t measure up. Eleven times over five years, the top 20 offered little he couldn’t handle. And that doesn’t even include the win over a young fellow Russian named Arman Tsarukyan, a title contender who might actually be the best lightweight on the planet today.
Makhachev turns 35 in October, but he’s shown no signs of slowing down. His cadence tends to be one or two fights annually, and a hand injury earlier this year may have been the only thing that kept him from two title defenses in 2026. Perhaps by the end of 2027, 17 will have been twice erased, with a breathtaking 19-fight win streak potentially in the offing.
But already, Makhachev aims higher. To the two-weight champ, 20 sounds like a nice round number to shoot for, presumably some time in 2028.
It’s the opposite of limbo. How high can he go?
Welterweight is a minefield, as it has been since the GOAT-level reign of Georges St-Pierre well over a decade ago as the sport emerged as mainstream sport. Machado Garry ranked as merely the No. 4 man in the 170-pound pecking order of the NY Post Sports MMA World Rankings. No. 1 Makhachev has yet to face No. 2 Carlos Prates or No. 3 Michael Morales. The only man to beat Machado Garry before Saturday, Shavkat Rakhmonov, would be ahead of them if not for injury-related inactivity.
To get to 20, Makhachev almost surely will have to defeat at least two of those men, if not all three. Each would have age on his side against the champ. Not as if that mattered enough for Machado Garry, though.
Going further just means dismantling more landmines. The field is never clear of danger.
Whatever the number, the name next to it stays the same. And you might be able to write that one in permanent ink.
