Sherdog’s 2023 Fight of the Year

True superfights are still rare in mixed martial arts. Rarer still are those that actually live up to the billing or exceed expectations. The first of two encounters between reigning Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight titleholder Islam Makhachev and current featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski checked all the boxes—and then some. The result? Sherdog.com’s “Fight of the Year.

Makhachev performed brilliantly in a hostile environment, recorded his 12th straight victory and retained his undisputed lightweight crown with an exhaustive five-round unanimous decision over “Alexander The Great” in the UFC 284 main event on Feb. 11 at the RAC Arena in Perth, Australia. Scores were 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46. The setback was Volkanovski’s first since May 10, 2013 and snapped his extraordinary 22-fight winning streak. Much more than gold was at stake Down Under.

“It doesn’t matter how I won today,” Makhachev said at the post-fight press conference. “Now, I’m not just a champion. I’m the best fighter in the world. I’m very happy.”

It was a strategic battle from beginning to end. Makhachev countered effectively with both hands throughout the 25-minute encounter and secured multiple takedowns, as he piled up nearly eight minutes of control time while progressing to the back and threatening the Aussie’s neck with chokes on more than one occasion. He peaked in the fourth round, where he ducked into a takedown, climbed to the back when Volkanovski attempted to escape and nailed down his position with a tight body triangle. Makhachev corralled the visibly irritated Australian for more than half the period, even as the raucous crowd voiced its disapproval. His advantages in the grappling department notwithstanding, he spent a decent portion of the match exchanging shots with Volkanovski on the feet and in the clinch.

“I know he’s short. I have a reach longer than him, and that’s why I was planning to try to knock him out,” Makhachev said. “I landed many good punches, good knees, but this guy’s so strong.”

A motivated Volkanovski made his move late in Round 5 after being cut by a knee strike in close quarters. He put Makhachev on all fours with a clubbing right hand to the side of the head and forced him to retreat in full guard. From there, Volkanovski let fly with punches to the body and head, upping the ferocity of his blows with each passing second. He connected with 52 total strikes across the final five minutes, but the finish he needed remained out of reach.

“It was a close fight, so what can you do? I could have done more, so I’m going to be harder on myself,” Volkanovski said. “I was expecting to win, so I’m disappointed. I know I could have done more. Credit to him. I underestimated his striking, and he underestimated my wrestling. What do you do? Mixed martial arts. At least we threw it all out there.”

Volkanovski outperformed the American Kickboxing Academy rep in the standup metrics, landing 70 significant strikes to his 57 and 164 total strikes to his 95. While the City Kickboxing star’s stock rose in defeat, it offered little solace in the aftermath of his first setback in 3,564 days.

“That’s everyone else’s expectations,” Volkanovski said. “I expected to win. Obviously, people are proud of how that went, but I expected to go out there and win and dominate. Still proud of myself. Still proved a lot of people wrong, but I didn’t get my hand raised.”

The Makhachev-Volkanovski superfight did big business at the box office for the UFC. It drew 14,124 fans and produced a gate north of $4 million. Executives took note.

“You don’t get many opportunities to have the pound-for-pound No. 1 and 2 together,” said David Shaw, the UFC’s senior vice president of international operations and content. “It’s an overused cliché, but the stars really do need to align. You’ve got to have the right athletes at the right time in their careers. You’ve got to have a venue that makes sense. To bring it to Australia was absolutely perfect for us. Then you’ve got to have at least weight classes where they’re within one weight class of each other. This was the perfect circumstance where you’ve got [those] two guys, and it turned out to be an absolutely brilliant fight.”