Stock Report: UFC 284

Two of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world clashed on Saturday in Perth, and the resulting fight was everything we had hoped for.

In the main event of UFC 284, lightweight champ Islam Makhachev defended his belt in hostile territory, as his featherweight counterpart Alexander Volkanovski sought to become the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s latest two-division titleholder. The two champs gave as good as they got for five closely contested rounds and in the end, a notable minority of observers thought the smaller man had done enough to win. However, the three opinions that mattered sided unanimously with Makhachev, who will carry a 12-fight winning streak into his next title defense. Volkanovski, who saw a mind-boggling 22-fight streak snapped in defeat, confirmed that he will return to 145 pounds to defend his belt against Yair Rodriguez, who strangled Josh Emmett to earn the interim belt in Saturday’s co-headliner.

Outside of the top three fights, UFC 284 was light on name value and divisional relevance for a pay-per-view card, but nonetheless there were plenty of people who elevated or lowered their stock at RAC Arena. Here are a few of them.

HOLDING STEADY: Both Headliners

UFC 284’s main event was that rarest of occurrences: a high-level fight in which everyone came out looking pretty good. Makhachev and Volkanovski both managed to answer nagging questions about themselves. Would Volkanovski be able to blunt the takedown assault of one of MMA’s most dominant ground fighters, with the added handicap of a size disadvantage? Would Makhachev be able to work effectively in the championship rounds of a fight he was not dominating, as he had been against Thiago Moises in his only other UFC bout to go past Round 3? The answers to both of those questions, and others, were in the affirmative.

Most importantly for the two most dominant divisional champs in the UFC, neither Makhachev nor Volkanovski left the cage looking particularly vulnerable. Makhachev entered UFC 284 as a nearly four-to-one favorite, and when he faces his next title challenger, whether that be Beneil Dariush, a rematch with Charles Oliveira or the winner of Michael Chandler vs. Conor McGregor, he will likely be favored by a similar margin, if not more. Volkanovski came up short in his bid for immortality, but it isn’t as if Makhachev laid down a blueprint that any of Volkanovski’s featherweight contenders are likely to be able to imitate, least of all Rodriguez.

STOCK UP: Jack Della Maddalena

Della Maddalena was spectacular in the feature fight, clocking Randy Brown, then pouncing on his fallen foe for an easy-looking rear-naked choke in less than half a round. With that, Perth’s favorite fighting son extended his win streak to 14, including four straight first-round finishes to open his UFC career. Della Maddalena is rarely mentioned in the same breath as fellow red-hot welterweights Khamzat Chimaev and Shavkat Rakhmonov, but perhaps he should be. The lack of hype is due in part to those two being undefeated, while Della Maddalena has two early career losses that are effectively meaningless when assessing his current ability. It is also probably due to his relatively low-key persona compared to the voluble Chimaev, and to Rakhmonov, who at least has the biggest fur hat in the UFC. However, the 26-year-old showed some soft-spoken confidence in his post-fight interview Saturday, as he called for a ranked opponent in his next appearance. He should get it, and if he keeps carving through opponents as he has been, his name will be on the tip of everyone’s tongue soon enough.

STOCK DOWN: Josh Emmett

It isn’t just that Emmett lost to Yair Rodriguez in the UFC 284 co-main event. Rodriguez is an elite featherweight whose arsenal of quick-strike offensive weapons is among the most diverse and potent we have ever seen. The real problem is that after what feels like a decade as a perennial contender whose time was going to come, Emmett finally looked old. At 38, after a couple of serious injuries and several careers’ worth of general wear and tear, Emmett was going to submit to the ravages of time eventually, and Saturday might have been it. I don’t generally put much stock in how someone looked during fight week or at the weigh-ins; all too often we’ve seen fighters look like death warmed over on Friday, then perform perfectly fine the next day. However, Emmett looked particularly miserable ahead of the fight, and then turned out on fight night to be sluggish and particularly vulnerable to body work. If this wasn’t the beginning of the end for the Team Alpha Male stalwart, the burden of proof will rest upon him in his next outing.

STOCK UP: Marc Goddard

The curse of referees and judges is that when they do their jobs perfectly, they are more or less invisible, while their screwups get the full glare of the spotlight. Goddard has taken his share of criticism since entering the pool of first-call referees at the top tier of the sport, but his handling of Alonzo Menifield’s fence grab against Jimmy Crute on Saturday was spot-on. Fence grabs don’t have the same sizzle as offensive fouls like eye pokes and groin strikes, but they’re arguably worse, as they’re never accidental and they’re usually fight-altering.

Goddard made a good call in a particularly tricky situation here. If a fighter on the ground grabs the fence while trying to stand, it’s simple to warn or penalize them, then return the action to the ground. Menifield, however, grabbed the fence while trying to avoid being taken down. Putting the fighters on the ground—effectively assuming that Crute would have gotten the takedown, and awarding him with one—would have been an unwarranted intrusion. Issuing nothing but a warning would have been a miscarriage of justice as well, since Menifield would already have gotten away with the only fence grab he probably needed. Goddard instead went with Option C: deduct a point from Menifield and then restart them in a neutral clinch position more or less where they had left off. It was the best solution, so credit where credit is due.

STOCK DOWN: Zubaira Tukhugov

Tukhugov dropped a split decision to Elves Brener Oliveira in a bout he probably deserved to win. That is the good news, such as it is. The rest of the report card on the 32-year-old Chechen is negative. To be competitive with a debuting fighter in a UFC curtain-jerker is cold comfort for a man who looked like a future contender and headliner seven years ago. Tukhugov also came in heavy for the fight, placing him in the rarefied company of fighters like John Lineker and Norma Dumont who have missed weight in multiple UFC divisions. Considering that he had already completed one hat trick of failure by having bouts cancelled due to blown weight cuts, a conduct-related suspension and a USADA suspension, Tukhugov is in serious danger of being remembered best as “that guy who sucker-punched Conor.”