Coming into UFC 330, I’ll be honest, it felt like the UFC had dropped the ball a little.

We had fights scratched, injuries, Turner and Kauê Fernandes only getting added to the main card on Friday, and I was still getting mixed reports about the start time right up until the last minute.

Maybe some of that was the aftermath of UFC 250 and everything they put into McGregor. Either way, the build-up felt messy. But the card felt delivered! (especially after our disappointment in the last one)

Quick Roundup

Ribovics vs Barboza

This one was a bit sad to watch.
Barboza just didn’t look like himself, and Ribovics pretty dominantly put him away with a second-round KO.
Then Barboza left his gloves in the Octagon and officially retired.
Obviously not the way you want to see someone like Barboza go out, but Ribovics looked fantastic. I think there could be some very good things coming from him.

Mansur vs Dustin

I think a lot of people expected Mansur to come out swinging and potentially get Dustin out of there early. Instead, Dustin looked like an absolute killer.
He stayed composed, got the fight where he wanted it and ultimately finished it with a submission in the second. Really impressive result, and probably not the way most people saw that fight going.

Turner vs Fernandes

I’d started counting Jalin Turner out a little. He’d won just one of his previous five, while Fernandes had only lost once coming into this. Turner clearly still backed himself!
He came out, looked incredibly sharp and put Fernandes away with a first-round KO. Considering where Turner seemed to be heading before this fight, that was a massive performance.

Dern vs Robertson

I genuinely thought Gillian Robertson was going to give Mackenzie Dern a serious challenge on the ground. She really didn’t.
Dern looked dominant pretty much throughout, and Robertson never seemed to have much of an answer for her grappling, which surprised me.
Dern couldn’t find the finish and had to settle for the decision, but I was still really impressed with the performance. Dern ain't going nowhere!

Makhachev vs Garry

And then the main event.
What a fight.
I’ve heard people calling it a snooze fest, but I didn’t see it that way at all.

I thought Garry came in with a really good game plan. It looked like he wanted to make Makhachev work early, conserve himself and try to come on stronger in the later rounds. But Makhachev is just too good.

That second round was huge. He nearly knocked Garry out, followed it with that incredible throw (looked like a Judo throw against a Judo Black belt) and really took control.

That said, Garry did a much better job defending Makhachev’s grappling than I expected, and I think you could reasonably give him two rounds.

To me, Garry also looked like he inflicted WAY more damage as the fight went on. If it somehow went six rounds, I could actually have seen things starting to turn his way.

But just not the way it goes. Over five rounds, Makhachev deserved the win.

I’ve always believed that if you’re taking the championship away from someone, you need to do it decisively, and Garry simply didn’t quite do enough. Still, I came away impressed with him. (Although he could tone down his self righteous speeches)

And for Makhachev, it’ll be interesting to see what happens if he keeps fighting these bigger guys. They’re clearly creating different problems for him. This was definitely one of the hardest fights of his career.

Overall, for an event that felt pretty messy coming in, UFC 330 ended up being a really good card.

And now onto UFC 331, which looks like it could be an absolute banger. Cannot wait to see if Pantoja has fully recovered, Arman has a prim opponent - the rest even into the Early prelims looks very exciting!!

Fight Realm Update

You might have noticed there’s been a heap of new stuff coming out on Fight Realm lately.

The team here has been working nonstop smashing keyboards, building features and trying to improve the UI. It’s a beast of a job, but we’re really starting to make some headway.

We’re going to put more effort into actually documenting and announcing this stuff properly, but in the meantime, have a poke around.

Check out the Performance Dashboard, where you can start tracking your performance and get AI insights into your picks. Its currently an FR+ feature, but you can see others by clicking their profile!

Have a look at the Advanced Stats on event pages under the fighters. It’s currently an FR+ feature, but we’re working on ways to make some of that more accessible to everyone.

And definitely check out The Realm. We’re creating another way for people to engage with Fight Realm, invite friends, publish content, get involved with the community, help grow the platform and earn points and prizes along the way.

There’s actually a heap of other stuff hidden around the site that you might not have found yet, including things like private prize pools in your groups!

And ofcourse the Mobile Apps for Apple and Android!

As always, guys and girls, we really appreciate the support.

There’s a small subscription for FR+ and FR++ if you want access to premium features, prize bonuses, or want to start growing your own group. Ultimately, the more support we get, the more resources we can put behind Fight Realm and keep pushing towards our goal of making this the number one fan engagement platform in fight sports.

Massive thanks to everyone who has supported us so far.

But enough of that - onto the FR 22 results.

FR22 Results + Winners

So, FR22. The results are in, and this was actually one of our biggest competitions to date with 673 active Realmers, which is an awesome number.

It also highlighted a few things we need to improve. With that many people picking, scores are starting to get pretty tight and we’re seeing more ties than we’d like. We’ve already got a fix coming that should create a bit more variance in scoring and hopefully reduce the need for so many tiebreakers.

For now though, where people are tied, the prizes will be shared across the ranked positions.

Before the bonuses came in, it was nice to see some familiar faces near the top — most notably our all-time number one Patototo, who had built a pretty serious lead in first.

We also had kpmcc17, ScoobyDune, eugenekim6464, along with some newer names like jakefoster896896, nathan woolley and OwnleyMMA.

OwnleyMMA stood out to me. Looks like he’s a young guy out of the States with his own MMA YouTube channel (check it out The Ownley MMA Show), and he nearly won his first competition. I love seeing that because it shows that the people genuinely interested MMA, putting in the time and doing their research, do actually perform!

Then the bonuses landed. Tuner and Stozfus got a Performance Bonus with no FON applied! For the final winners

Drumroll please...

1st - Patototo🥇

2nd & 3rd - kpmcc17 & ScoobyDune🥈🥉

4th - jakefoster896, nathan woolley and OwnleyMMA🏅

Further down we had Conejos59, who seems to find his way up there pretty regularly, along with EugeneKim. Frankie popped up again, JX Cobb was back amongst it, and var0k made the top 100.

A few of the other regulars didn’t quite get there this time, just goes to show that the competition is getting more fierce!

And as Fight Realm grows — more users, more subscribers and more advertisers — the plan is pretty straight forward: bigger prize pools and more prizes across the board!

So get involved.

For the winners, we’ve also added a new feature that should automatically notify you when you’ve won and let you complete your prize claim directly through the website.

If it gives you any grief, reach out to BennyPacquiao and he’ll sort you out.

What's Next

Over the next few weeks we'll be tidying up the platform and the apps, making them easier to use while we prepare for something super exciting. Our first multi event competition, including fight nights - More on this will be posted on the messageboard in the coming weeks!

To keep this growing, we need your support! So if you want to get help us take this to the moon -

• Consider Subscribing - Every subscriptions helps us build this bigger and better every week, while providing some awesome features with more on the way. Subscribe now to get your Founding Member badge and help take this to the next level!
• Create a Group - Head over to the groups section, create your group and invite your friends to compete in the next competition. Nothing better than winning with your mates and against your mates, but most of all having some skin in the game when you watch makes it THAT much better
• Invite your friends - Whether you have a group or not, everyone competes in the sitewide competitions, so invite your friends and get involved!
• Post and engage on the Message board - Help get the conversation started, post anything related to MMA, fight analysis, news, feedback you name it! We want this to become the go to site for MMA chat and social competitions, every bit of content and engagement helps us get there!
• Follow us and engage on your favorite socials Facebook and Instagram

People - There are some absolutely sick fight nights coming up with some seriously main event talent, stick around help the conversations get started and see you on the message board soon with upcoming developments and more!

See you on the realm!!