UFC 311 review: Islam Makhachev and Merab Dvalishvili are special fighters
UFC 311 is in the books and both Islam Makhachev and Merab Dvalishvili remain UFC champions.
On Saturday night at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., Makhachev ran through late-replacement Renato Moicano in the main event for his fourth straight lightweight title defense, setting the record and cementing himself as one of the best of all time. Plus, earlier in the evening, Dvalishvili scored an impressive decision win over Umar Nurmagomedov in his first bantamweight title defense.
On top of all that, the rest of UFC 311 offered a number of big results, so we gathered the MMA Fighting brain trust to break down the biggest topics from the UFC’s first pay-per-view event in 2025.
1. What is your blurb review of UFC 311?
Lee: A perfectly constructed card, given the circumstances.
The first three fights of the night went the distance, serving as perfectly entertaining appetizers. The rest of the prelims featured a mix of veterans and up-and-coming prospects—with one prize prospect, in particular, falling flat—And the main card delivered in spades with two brilliant fights and four finishes. Sure, we didn’t get to see Islam Makhachev rematch Arman Tsarukyan, but every opportunity to watch the best fighter on the whole damn planet put in work should be cherished.
Outside of losing the originally scheduled main event, this couldn’t have been a better start to the UFC’s pay-per-view slate.
Heck: Fun as hell.
As AK just laid out, losing the main event—and in my eyes, one of the absolute best fights on paper, stylistically, you can make in the UFC—a day before the first card of 2025 stings. But luckily, the UFC, Makhachev, Moicano, and their teams stepped up, made it happen and the best fighter on Earth still got to compete.
Add Merab vs. Umar being awesome, Jiri Prochazka vs. Jamahal Hill’s absolute chaos, two quick finishes to start the main card, plus some huge upsets on the prelims, and you have a winner.
Martin: Main card madness!
While the prelims provided some surprises—nobody thought Payton Talbott would lose much less get blanked by Raoni Barcelos—the action wasn’t exactly off the charts. But the main card pulled no punches. Reinier de Ridder got things started with a lightning-quick submission over Kevin Holland and the relentless pace never slowed down from there.
Sure, it’s a little disappointing we didn’t get to see Makhachev vs. Tsarukyan 2 but as already stated by my colleagues, it’s still a pleasure to watch the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter go to work. Always enjoy those moments because they can’t last forever.
Meshew: A strong start to the year.
On paper, UFC 311 appeared to be an elite pay-per-view event with two title fights, several high-profile matchups, and an undercard filled with prospects. Things certainly took a bit of a hit when Arman Tsarukyan was forced to drop out, but overall the card still looked to be both extremely significant and fun. And when the dust all settled, that’s exactly what we got: big fights, great action, unexpected outcomes, and a good evening spent watching fistfights.
2. What was the best moment of UFC 311?
Lee: Anytime you have two potential Fight of the Year candidates and it’s only January, you know you had a good night.
Take your pick between Merab Dvalishvili vs. Umar Nurmagomedov and Jiri Prochazka vs. Jamahal Hill, there’s no wrong answer. I’m leaning towards the bantamweight championship fight, which was the perfect mixture of technique and dogged determination that I love to see. Dvalishvili was at his relentless best Saturday, taking everything Nurmagomedov could throw at him and answering with a laugh and a smile on his face.
This was a legacy performance for the champion, who many—including me—had predicted to fall to Nurmagomedov before the fight was even officially announced.
Heck: Merab having the big brother moment is probably the correct answer, but I’m going with Jiri Prochazka vs. Jamahal Hill.
The pressure on both of those men was off the charts, yet in totally different ways. Prochazka is in the Derrick Lewis ilk where rankings and titles matter to him, but not really to anybody else. People just want to watch him be Jiri in the octagon, but his forever title hopes were on the line. Prochazka was still the wild man we all love, but showed some exceptional defense and evolution as well before delivering the brutal knockout in Round 3.
And for Hill, he needed this one in the worst way. A loss would be crippling—at least, that’s what I thought going in. Hill, despite having a tough couple of years in the PR department, had a fantastic fight week in the build, and an even better performance even though he lost. Hill is one of the top 205ers in the game, and this fight proved it more than him winning the title against Glover Teixeira. Hopefully, Hill takes the loss in stride publicly.
Martin: Let’s not over-complicate things here—the answer is Merab Dvalishvili silencing all his doubters and it’s not particularly close.
Nobody believed in Nurmagomedov more than me. He truly looked like the future of the bantamweight division and everything he’d shown so far made it appear he was destined to become champion. Maybe that still happens one day down the road but Saturday night belonged to Dvalishvili.
“The Machine” once again lived up to his nickname as he dropped a couple of rounds early, but it’s almost like he was just baiting Nurmagomedov with false confidence so he could thoroughly turn the tables on him in the latter half of the fight. Dvalishvili’s pace and conditioning might be the best weapon in all of MMA right now because he made it look like Nurmagomedov didn’t have a gas tank to go past two rounds. Constant pressure, takedowns, and some timely strikes allowed the champion to simply overwhelm the challenger.
Dvalishvili proved a whole lot of people wrong—myself included—and he cemented himself as the best bantamweight in the world by a wide margin.
Meshew: This is low-hanging fruit, but the answer is the main event and the ascension of Islam Makhachev.
Credit to Dvalishvili who was exceptional on Saturday, but my peers waxed plenty poetic on that. Instead, let me talk to you about the undisputed best fighter in the world. That’s right, after everything that went down this week, even Dana White now agrees that Makhachev sits atop the pound-for-pound list.
No, Saturday was not the fight with Tsarukyan we all wanted to see, but it was a demolition from the best fighter in the world. And it wasn’t guaranteed. Short-notice fights are inherently tricky because everything is thrown up in the air, and we’ve seen more cautious champions *cough* Jon Jones *cough* turn down such fights because of the risk. Makhachev didn’t hesitate to take on Moicano and then ran through him like tissue paper. That’s incredibly impressive.
On Saturday, Makhachev not only cemented his place in history by setting the lightweight title defense record, he officially opened up the conversation of where he may end up in the all-time pantheon. Still just 33 years old, Makhachev is in unprecedented territory in the best division in the sport. There’s a legitimate argument he’s already in the Top 15 all time, and he’s got plenty of room to improve.
3. What was the worst moment of UFC 311?
Lee: This show was so fun, I had to reach deep to find a standout negative.
Three fighters entered Saturday undefeated and all three lost their zeroes, none in a more uninspiring fashion than Japan’s Rinya Nakamura. The athletic 29-year-old seemingly refused to go to his vaunted wrestling against a scrappy Muin Gafurov, who was happy to style in the standup against his less-experienced opponent. Perhaps young Rinya was determined to show he can mix the martial arts, something I’ve often described as a fad that I’m sure will die down any day now.
Remember, #KeepTheMartialArtsApart.
Heck: Umar Nurmagomedov’s post-fight interview.
Sure, it was his first UFC title fight, he’s making huge leaps in the eyeballs-on-him department, but he absolutely did not do the thing when he had the chance with Joe Rogan. Immediately, he threw out the hand injury, which, obviously, is part of the overall story, but that’s something you either reveal way down the line, or have your management team feed to one person to share with the world on Sunday, or a few days later.
That’s not what happened here, and it was an absolute bummer, mostly because I do think he wins the bantamweight title someday.
On top of that, he says he won—which is insane. Nurmagomedov also saved it by saying he needs to re-watch the fight, but not at least putting Merab over in some way, giving the old, “Hope we can do it again someday, it would be an honor’ thing would’ve gone over so much better. He talked a lot of crap about Merab and then was clearly defeated.
On a main card full of great, that was my lone, “Oh, no” moment. Hopefully, Umar can salvage it with a separate statement on social media, but I was disappointed. As Damon is about to elude to, while it may be a bit heartbreaking, there is a correct way to handle a loss...
Meshew: While I don’t agree with everything Mike says about Umar, I do think his post-fight handling of his first loss left plenty to be desired. I’ve long been on the record that fighters need to keep the same energy before as after, and Umar definitely did not do that. But it’s hard for me to call that the worst when we saw an actual crime occur on Saturday.
Poor Jamahal Hill suffered a highway robbery when the UFC took $50,000 out of his pocket by not giving him and Jiri Prochazka Fight of the Night honors. I’m not here to tell you that Merab vs. Umar was a bad fight. It wasn’t. That was two elite fighters competing in high-level MMA. But that fight had very little drama and, let’s be honest, very little actual violence in it. For the most part, it was Merab Merab-ing Umar, which is undeniably impressive, but c’mon!
For 13 minutes, Jiri and Jamahal went toe-to-toe in a battle of knuckles and will. Hill managed to battle back after getting FLOORED in the first round, and then Jiri put the pedal down in the closing minutes to finish the fight. To me, that’s pretty obviously the best fight of the year thus far and for it to somehow not even win FOTN feels wrong.
Martin: Perhaps not the worst moment but maybe the saddest?
Since taking on a new persona as “Money” Moicano, the 27-fight veteran went from an always exciting performer inside the cage to one of the most entertaining athletes on the entire UFC roster. His boisterous attitude, which combines a unique blend of financial advice and creative expletives, transformed Moicano into must-see television anytime he fought or had a microphone in front of his face.
But Saturday night delivered a tear-jerking post-fight interview after Moicano acknowledged his shortcomings against Makhachev while stating that he spent his whole life chasing a UFC title only to tap out from a submission in the first round. To make things even worse, Moicano admitted that he may never see an opportunity like this again because lightweights typically don’t get better with age and he’s already on the wrong side of 30.
Losses are part of the game and Moicano deserves huge credit for taking a swing at the champion even if he whiffed but it was a tough scene just watching him realize that he may never get back to that stage again. Where are the tissues? It’s getting dusty in here.
4. What’s your biggest takeaway from UFC 311?
Lee: 2025 might not signal the changing of the guard some were expecting.
The possibility of two new UFC champions was legitimately in play when this card was announced, but instead we got a double serving of “And Still” with Tsarukyan not even making it to the cage and Nurmagomedov falling just short against a resilient champion. That’s not to say we won’t see Tsarukyan or Nurmagomedov claim gold someday, but how crazy would it have been to see one division shaken up to start the year?
Instead, Makhachev and Dvalishvili took care of business, leaving us to wonder if anyone in their respective divisions can dethrone them anytime soon.
Meshew: Merab Dvalishvili is a special, special fighter.
Before Saturday I was very vocal with my belief that Umar was a terrible style matchup for Merab and his brand of low-violence high-output fighting. I was dead wrong. Sure, Merab didn’t really hurt Umar over 25 minutes, but he did put him in the torture rack, and he was able to do so because Merab has the greatest cardio in the history of MMA, possibly in all of combat sports.
Dvalishvili’s ability to keep up an insane work rate for 25 minutes and never slow down is a miracle. It has no parallel in the sport, honestly. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t exactly punch hard or attempt submissions, he simply goes and opponents are forced to respond. Before too long, they can’t. It must be like fighting some hellish combination of Richard Simmons and the Energizer Bunny.
We use the term “drowning” fairly often in MMA, but Merab truly turned it into an art form, and while it may not be the most engaging style to watch, you cannot deny how impressive he is.
Heck: If I don’t get to see Islam Makhachev vs. Arman Tsarukyan 2, I’m going to be pissed.
It’s certainly not going to happen next, and it absolutely shouldn’t. Dana White is 100 percent correct in saying that, and Tsarukyan agreeing to it is great as well. Khabib Nurmagomedov went through the same exact thing, fought Edson Barboza, ran him over, then won the belt a fight later.
If I’m Tsarukyan, I was on the phone with my manager the second Michael Chandler called him out on Twitter. Tsarukyan needs to take that idea and run with it as fast as his legs will move, because there may not be a better matchup for him in terms of name value, and skill-for-skill in the top-10 right now.
Martin: Islam Makhachev is him.
Sure, he didn’t get to vanquish arguably his toughest challenge to date in Tsarukyan, but Makhachev made the best out of a bad situation. He didn’t blink when the UFC came calling with a last-minute opponent change because Makhachev doesn’t turn down fights. He just tells the UFC to let him sleep and he’ll worry about his opponent in the morning. Who does that?!? Islam Makhachev, that’s who.
And perhaps the most satisfying moment from his win and fourth consecutive title defense—a new record in the UFC lightweight division—Makhachev finally forced Dana White to concede that he’s the real No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the sport over Jon Jones. Yes, the vast majority of people already knew that but White giving Makhachev his flowers felt like the perfect ending after another lopsided win in a UFC title fight.