{"id":858536,"date":"2026-08-17T14:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/858536\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T14:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:18:09","slug":"hardy-on-makhachevs-welterweight-future-his-game-has-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/858536\/","title":{"rendered":"Hardy on Makhachev\u2019s welterweight future: \u2018His game has to change\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Islam Makhachev won again on Saturday night at UFC 330,<\/a> surpassing Anderson Silva to hold the most consecutive wins in UFC history. That new number, 17, will already be hard to surpass<\/a> \u2026 and Makhachev has made it clear that he intends to keep adding to it for years to come.<\/a><\/p>\n

Standing in the way of even more legacy are some particularly large welterweight challengers. Michael Morales claims he cut down from 230 pounds<\/a> to be the backup fighter for Islam Makhachev vs. Ian Machado Garry. Carlos Prates is a big boy as well. And at UFC 330, Ian Machado Garry showed how you can stay upright and make things interesting against the former lightweight Makhachev.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with Submission Radio, former UFC welterweight contender and current PFL director of European operations Dan Hardy delved into the difficulties Makhachev could face moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obvious that welterweights are a decent bit more difficult to control for 25 minutes,\u201d Hardy said. \u201cI think that\u2019s what Makhachev was realizing yesterday \u2026 It\u2019s only gonna get more difficult for your division. You look at the other guys sitting around the octagon ready to call him out. None of them are easy fights for him, and they all get bigger than him and Garry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMakhachev stepped up into a weight class where guys are — and I\u2019m gonna use these words very, very clearly — people are weighing in 15 pounds heavier. They\u2019re not 15 pounds heavier. They\u2019ve got more muscle mass. They\u2019ve got bigger frames. You\u2019re getting guys that are 6\u20192, 6\u20193, 6\u20194. Some of these welterweights have really big, broad shoulders, long arms, long legs, difficult to take down because there\u2019s always a limb that\u2019s gonna connect to the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMakhachev\u2019s game has to change,\u201d Hardy said. \u201cAnd I think this is where Makhachev will adapt if he stays in the welterweight division, if he wants to stay and try and keep defending the belt. I think he\u2019s gonna be much more about hustle. This is where someone like Merab [Dvalishvili] made up for being shorter in the division. He just forced people to work much harder. Same thing with Volkanovski. There\u2019s something to be learned from both of those guys — smaller in the division, but just as effective because they they crafted their game around their assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think Makhachev needs to realize that he\u2019s not gonna be one of the bigger bullies in the weight class anymore, because there\u2019s gonna be some big boys that he has to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to size differences, there\u2019s no one bigger<\/a> in the division than Michael Morales, which may be why Islam Makhachev has put forward a preference for fighting Carlos Prates first.<\/a> Ian Machado Garry beat Prates, and now Makhachev has beaten Machado Garry. Morales is 19-0 and as dangerous as they come. He\u2019s also on the verge of sizing out of the weightclass, so if Makhachev delays that fight by another 9 months it may never happen.<\/p>\n

Islam Makhachev is not Khabib Nurmagomedov, who won every single one of his fights in extremely dominant fashion. Alexander Volkanovski beat Islam up. Dustin Poirier beat Islam up. Ian Machado Garry beat Islam up.<\/a> Islam takes damage and has to dig deep to earn his wins. It certainly makes for more interesting fights than his win over Jack Della Maddalena.<\/a> But against a first round knockout artist like Morales, it could mean the end of his 17 fight win streak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Islam Makhachev won again on Saturday night at UFC 330, surpassing Anderson Silva to hold the most consecutive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,358075,1396,179146],"class_list":["post-858536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-330","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-on-paramount"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}