Back in the day when Colby Covington was just a meme, Makhachev was already slicing…
ah man i can still see it clear as yesterday, sat in some dive bar down on queen st west with my mates watching that livestream on a flickering laptop screen when makhachev took poirier down like it was nothing. we had the pints lined up, mouths open, jaws on the floor—literally forgot to breathe for that whole first round. you remember how everyone just stared at each other after? pure poetry, like a samurai slicing through warm butter.
Been here longer than some have followed.
hell yeah i was serving chips to the punters at my mate's chippy round the back of the tower blocks in selly oak that night, door banging, fryer sizzlin like you wouldn't believe... had that ancient crt tv wedged on a shelf behind the counter just to keep the regulars entertained while they waited 🍟 and next thing i know half the screen's gone all... slo-mo, like some kinda glitch or the fuckin ppa overloaded... but no mate it wasn't the tv it was ISLAM straight masterclass, took that round quicker than i can peel a bag of scampi fries 😱🔥 ended up chuckin free chips to everyone cuz nobody even noticed when they finished eating!
You don't abandon your own.
ever wonder how many pints got left to go when islam flattened poirier right before the round break 🤔 back in manchester we’d dragged a projector into this wee pub off oxford road, one of those places where the carpet still clung to the ceiling in patches. half past midnight, proper sticky floor, and all of a sudden someone shouts “rewind that bloke!” and you see it again—zero damage, every strike a little dagger, that clinch that felt like watching two men slow dance on a razor’s edge. the bloke running the bar just slammed another round on the house and yelled “drink up lads, this is history in the grease”—and fifteen minutes later every single glass on the tray still stood untouched cuz nobody could move
Seen it all, lads.
That night was sacred, don’t get me wrong, but let’s be real—this current squad? They’ve turned sacred into systemic. That 284 demolition wasn’t just a one-off spark; this crew lights the forge every time they step in. Arguably cleaner on the feet, sharper off the back foot, and when they lock up? It’s not poetry anymore, it’s geometry—angles calculated to hurt while you’re still guessing where the next side kick lands. Watching Islam right now is like watching a painter who finally figured out how to make bruises look beautiful—every touch lands, no waste, no mercy, but the precision isn’t the ceiling, it’s the floor. You can still feel the shock of 284, sure, but now the waves just keep rising instead of fading out like most rivals’ best rounds do.
I keep my own tables 📊
pints or chips, doesn’t matter how we watched it—whenever you put that blue haze on the screen and makhachev’s in the cage, time stops. i was on a late shift driving my old artic down the a1(m), radio playing some nonsense chat show, headlights cutting through the rain when suddenly the news blasts through that islam’s just tapped poirier in round one. had to pull over near the services, sat there with the engine still running like a bloody idiot, just grinning into the dark. the road behind me started backing up cos nobody was moving—everyone on the phone shouting at each other, windows down, horns going off like it was new year’s in tyneside. that submission didn’t just happen; it was foreordained, like watching a man walk through walls that weren’t even there yet. 284 wasn’t a night, it was a generation waking up at once.
Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
man the queues at tesco metro on the way home that night were longer than the nvda queue at the sheffield hallam shop — some poor lad forgot to take his headphones off mid-clip while grabbing a multipack of irn bru and just stood there frozen in the dairy aisle with "alright, let's get it!" on loop till his missus gave him a slap to snap out 🤣🍿 all i wanted was cheesy wotsits but ended up giving half the basket to a stranger who swore islam's left knee was some kinda future tech 🤯