The UFC’s annual November stops in New York City have always been special.
Saturday night’s card at Madison Square Garden was no exception to the rule.
UFC 322 was easily one of the best MMA cards of the year. It might have even been the best, flat out.
The main event was contested at welterweight, with new champion Jack Della Maddalena defending his belt against Islam Makhachev. Makhachev was making his debut in the division after a long reign as lightweight champion, and was seeking to usurp Ilia Topuria’s spot atop the UFC’s pound-for-pound list by becoming a two-division champ himself.
In the end, that’s just what he did, and he made it look effortless.
Early in the opening round, Makhachev completed his first takedown of the fight, and it was effectively all over from there. He repeatedly took the welterweight champion down over the course of the contest, and at the rare times the action was on the feet, the takedown threat gave him leeway to do whatever he wanted. What he chose to do was batter Della Maddalena’s legs with kicks, which only made his subsequent takedowns come more easily.
Della Maddalena miraculously survived to the final bell, but by that point, he looked utterly defeated, and the result was inevitable. Makhachev was the winner by unanimous decision and is now a two-division UFC champion. His victory wasn’t as quick as Ilia Topuria’s June win over Charles Oliveira, but it was just as one-sided. It was also his sixteenth in a row, which ties Anderson Silva’s record for the longest win streak in UFC history.
“This is the dream,” Makhachev told commentator Joe Rogan in his post-fight interview. “All of my life for these two belts. I’m really happy. The belts are so heavy. I like it. I worked hard for this moment.
Makhachev’s welterweight title win comes at a very exciting time. The division is currently flooded with new and exciting title contenders, two of whom jumped to the very front of the line at UFC 322.
First up, cigarette-smoking knockout artist Carlos Prates scored a vicious, second-round KO over Leon Edwards, a former champion who recorded two title defenses at the height of his powers.
In the very next fight, undefeated Ecuadorian finisher Michael Morales shook up the rankings with a first-round knockout of No. 1 contender Sean Brady.
He and Prates could both conceivably get the first crack at Makhachev. The winner of next weekend’s Ian Machado Garry vs. Belal Muhammad fight could too, as could the returning Shavkat Rakhmonov or Kamaru Usman.
In other words, Makhachev’s work is seemingly far from done.
That is not the case for flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, who blew away one of her last remaining challenges in the UFC 322 co-main event. Shevchenko, who has beaten every contender worth mentioning over the course of two title reigns, was believed to be facing one of her toughest challenges in New York City, as she faced down former strawweight champ Zhang Weili.
Unlike Makhachev, Zhang failed to become a two-division champ and, in fact, did little of anything, as she was torn up on the feet and easily controlled on the mat by Shevchenko. It was a clear-cut, unanimous-decision victory for the flyweight queen.
“I was preparing for this fight as the hardest challenge in my life,” Shevchenko said after her dominant win. “This is what I call the art of martial arts. When they are here in front of me, they cannot do anything.”
While there aren’t many challenges left for Shevchenko at flyweight, there are still a few contenders she’s yet to face. That includes Natalia Silva, as well as Erin Blanchfield, who asserted herself as a title threat on the UFC 322 undercard. She was returning to action against Tracy Cortez, and improved to a solid 8-1 in the Octagon with a second-round submission win.
UFC 322’s lopsided championship fights and statement-making contenders will no doubt dominate MMA fans’ conversation in the coming weeks. However, that’s definitely not all the card gave us to talk about. The remainder of the event produced many other memorable moments.
Chief among those was an impressive victory from French lightweight contender Benoit Saint-Denis, who knocked out well-rounded veteran Beneil Dariush with a left hook in just 16 seconds. It was his third win in a row after dominant showings against Kyle Prepolec and Mauricio Ruffy, and it gave him a big push up the lightweight ladder.
Middleweight prospect Bo Nickal also made a huge statement in New York City. Nickal started 2025 as one of the most hyped fighters in MMA, but after a devastating stoppage loss to Reinier de Ridder in his first fight of the year, he entered his Saturday fight with Rodolfo Vieira in a must-win situation. He got the job done in style, leveling his foe with a third-round head kick. It was easily the most impressive win of his MMA career to date.
All in all, UFC 322 was a card with a little bit of everything—and one that cemented two legendary fighters amongst the greats of the sport. We can debate about the card’s place among the year’s best all night, but there’s no question it carried on the time-honored tradition of unforgettable MMA action inside Madison Square Garden.