Surprise surprise: UFC 330 turned out exactly like most thought it would

August is normally a dead month for UFC. They don't really compete with any other sports during the weekends in this time of year so they don't normally put their best lineup forward. This card was weak from the start and it wasn't in a high-profile city either. Philly is a great city don't get me wrong. Lots of really good teams there across all sorts of sports but UFC normally reserves their truly big events for NYC, LA, and Las Vegas.

This one was always going to be weak and I guess that is why people weren't even all that pissed off when it turned out to be exactly that.

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Makhachev vs. Machado Garry was always going to be weak and this is actually a big problem for UFC as far as the Daegestani fighters are concerned. Their methods are effective, but they are very boring to watch. Grappling is indeed an important part of the game but it is the least entertaining method of victory.

Islam Makachev didn't really even seem to prepare as well as he normally would for a fight as he seemed to kind of gas a bit toward the 4th and 5th round but it didn't really matter. Garry was at times a +500 underdog because the experts and book-makers thought (correctly) that any time that striking wasn't going the way Makachev wanted it to that he was going to shoot for takedowns and well, that is exactly what he did.

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It's fun to look at these big hits on the part of the Irishman who desperately wanted to be the second coming of McGregor, but unfortunately any time that the striking started to look as if it was benefiting Garry, Islam shot for a takedown, got it more often than not, and then just hugged and jockeyed for position for the rest of the round.

There were zero submission attempts and this isn't to throw shade at Makachev, Garry clearly prepared as well as one can as far as defense against exactly that is concerned.

I'm not a big fan of "ground control time" being a part of the scoring process and would like to see that process changed. As far as strikes were concerned Garry had a slight edge as far as strikes thrown, strikes landed, and significant strikes (whatever that means). It is important to note that the only time either guy was "rattled" or knocked down it was actually Makhachev that got the strike that made this happen.

The rest of the card I didn't watch much of but I can't help but feel a bit bad for Women's strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern. She doesn't get a great deal of respect as champion and tonight's bout was a good example of why that is.

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Dern spent most of the fight proving that she was the better of the two women in there, but at no point in time did it really feel like she was ever close to finishing it. By the end of the fight both of these women didn't have a great deal of battle-scars and the final round was a bit embarrassing for Dern because she seemed to know she was up on points and then just lied down and played the sort of defense you would if you were being attacked by a Grizzly bear.

Dern has a record of 16-5: This isn't exactly the record of a dominant champion and most are stating the obvious about how if the world's truly best women fighters were actually pursuing her at the moment, she wouldn't stay at the top for very long. The last fight that she was in that was against someone that you might have even heard of was back in 2022, and Dern lost that fight. Flyweight is where the true competition is in the women's division and strawweight, which many think was created solely for Holly Holm and the hope that Cyborg would come and contest it, is a division that honestly, should just be scrapped. Most fit women do not weight enough to take part in this and this is why the lower weight divisions are so much more exciting. That's my opinion though.

Nobody is really going to move up to try to take Dern's belt away from her when the eyes are really on flyweight and bantamweight. Weili Zhang would have destroyed either one of these women that were fighting tonight.

You can tell that the industry doesn't really think that much of Dern either because despite being champion her PFP rating is much lower than you would think it would be for a champ. Hell, at the moment Zhang is in the same weight class as Dern, isn't the champion, and is still ranked higher than Dern.

I ran off the rails a bit there because I don't think women's strawweight should exist anymore and having a champ as poor as Dern is kind of proof of that.

I believe she is trying to salvage her image with Instagram and I will say this: She is definitely one of the most attractive women fighters that UFC has ever seen. I think she tries to leverage this for better pay and I honestly hope it is working for her.

330 went by without very many people caring and some of the highlights from undercards were explosive, but when the top booked fights are both boring, that's a pretty bad sign.