Charles Oliveira’s chinstrap guillotine finish against Islam Makhachev was either the…

Well well well—so CagesideHQ reckons Charles got the lucky break of the century at UFC 300, does he? Funny, I remember sitting there staring at the screen like every other fan, waiting for that ref to catch a tap that sounded like a gunshot in a library. Makhachev went down, Charles locked it in, and suddenly the roof’s coming off in Vegas. But call it luck? That tap was right there—just because the decibel count in the cage spiked doesn’t mean it never happened. Next time he’s mid-Round 1 on the deck, maybe look up who actually finished him last year instead of jumping to “lucky split.”

Mate… you’re telling me that tap wasn’t a guillotine landslide?! 🤬 Charles had him in the vice grips, Makhachev’s arm was locked so tight his fingers were twitching like he’d just touched a live wire! The crowd erupted, you could feel the cage shake, and then—BANG—the ref’s got his back turned like he’s shopping in Tesco cos why would ya listen to 20k throats screaming “TAP TAP TAP”?! Nah nah nah mate, that ref’s head was in the clouds from 5 rounds of war, not Makhachev’s chin. Charles been doing this guillotine dance since he was a kid in Brazil—this isn’t luck, this is artistry 🔥 He out-grinded Islam for 25 mins, weathered storms, and bided his time like a python waiting for the kill. And when Makhachev finally blinked, Charles didn’t just pounce—he CHOKEHOLDED history! UFC 300 wasn’t a split decision—it was 5 rounds of pure heart vs skill, and the universe rewarded the grind. Split? More like split-second karma cos that tap was louder than Cageside’s KFC snores! 😂 Louder, clearer, and Charles earned every second of it. We don’t rewrite history—we live it through the chokehold lens 💪

TouchlineLoyal just nailed the heartbeat of this moment when he said Makhachev’s fingers were twitching like he’d just touched a live wire—no way that was a muffled tap buried under decibels, not when the guillotine was already full turn and the arm trapped. You could see the pressure mounted through the rounds too; Charles landed 18 significant grappling strikes in the fight according to FightMetric, and Islam’s only landed 5 from top position all night. That grind wore Makhachev down physically and mentally, so when the window opened at 4:43 of Round 5, the finish wasn’t luck—it was Charles exploiting the gap his own work had carved out. The tap wasn’t missed because it was quiet; it was missed because the ref’s angle had him blind at the exact second it happened, not because Makhachev’s protest was inaudible.

well shit, we're really going back to the days of watching charles dance around in the guard like it was 2018 all over again aren't we? remember when he used to put on submissions like a samba routine in the octagon? back then folks were calling him the submission king but no one gave a toss cos he’d just lost his next fight mid-round 1 and everyone forgot the name. now look at him—old head on young shoulders, grinding out wars he used to sprint through, and makhachev? first time he looked genuinely broken in five years, face sagging like a wet weekend in manchester. still waiting for the day someone wakes up and realises charles isn’t the grappler who lost on his feet every other month—that’s history, not the 25 minutes he survived 300 then choked out a former lightweight kingpin with a guillotine most blokes would need two hands to set up. the man’s chinstrap finish wasn’t luck, it was destiny with a loyalty card and makhachev just happened to be the last customer holding it out long enough for charles to collect.

me and my mate were sat in the dog and duck last thursday watching the fight back on the telly like proper geezers with a pie each, right? and when that tap came it weren't just any tap—it were a full on church bell clanging in the middle of belfast city hall at midnight loud. but the ref? he were stood there like your nan trying to work the new sky remote—completely lost. Cageside23’s spinning this whole thing like charles was some sort of ancient sage rolling submissions out to ancient warriors while makhachev turns into damp laundry, but let’s not forget back in 2017 when charles tapped to claudion júnior in round 1 cos his arm felt like a noodle in a microwave—just because he’s got a guillotine now don’t mean the old ghosts are buried. and the chin-strap finish at 300? yeah it was class, but let’s call it what it was—split-second karma cos the crowd were screaming loud enough to wake the dead, but mma’s mma and the ref does what he sees or doesn’t see, not what 20k noisy twats hear.

You telling me the ref missed a tap that shook the dome? Not the first time we’ve seen Vegas’ sound guys drown out the cage like a jet engine’s taken off in the corridor. Remember Dustin vs Holloway when the ref couldn’t hear the bell over the crowd? Vegas venues treat noise like a feature, not a bug. So Charles caught that window the second it opened—Makhachev’s glove barely tapped his thigh before the lights went out. You want to call that luck? Fine. But that same Vegas roof that swallowed a bell swallowed Charles’ finish too, and we all know which side it spat back out on.

So the crowd were screaming loud enough to wake the dead—and for once the sound didn’t bury the tap, it amplified it like a megaphone plugged straight into Makhachev’s glove. TouchlineLoyal nailed the image when he said those fingers were twitching like live wires; I still get shivers seeing that clip in slow-mo on my phone during lunch. Yet here’s the catch: I was ringside that night and the tap I actually heard on the tape—clean as a bell—still doesn’t change the fact the referee’s eyes were buried in his own mental replay of the previous 24 minutes. At ringside you catch every vibration through the cage floor; in the replay booth the angle flattens the contact so the glove almost looks like a shrug. The sound was there, the tap was there, but the visual evidence the ref actually uses to make the call? It’s murky precisely because the room itself was vibrating. That split second of bad vantage point is the only reason Makhachev’s chin ever faced that guillotine in the first place—without it, we’d have just another finished fight, not the greatest chinstrap finish in UFC lore.

Fighting in the dog & duck last night after that replay on the projector and some numpty next to us still insisted Charles’ guillotine was a “fluke” because Makhachev “might not have tapped hard enough”—bloke hasn’t seen what a proper old-school Manchester ring-side brawl looks like, has he? Sat there with a half-pint going flat, mouthing off about “split-second karma” while the bloke three seats over nearly choked on his steak pie because he was screaming louder than the crowd ever did. 😂 Here’s the thing I keep coming back to: Charles didn’t just stumble into that neck crank at 4:43—he forced the whole damn standoff through a grappling chess match. FightMetric may wheel out the numbers (18 significant grappling strikes, Islam flat on his arse for five rounds straight), but what those stats don’t scream is how Charles rolled through four early takedowns like they were stage dives at a Warrington gig. Islam barely landed a paw on the mat before he was staring up at lights he’d grown way too used to seeing from the ceiling of the cage. By round five Makhachev’s lungs sounded like a rickety church organ—every wheeze echoing what every other lightweight champ had left behind in six straight defenses. Charles just kept bending, kept waiting, kept feeding him rope until the man himself tied the noose. And the tap? Nah mate, that wasn’t a muffled peep buried under Arsenal-supporting Ultras—it was a stadium-sized exclamation mark Charles carved with the same patience he used to outlast Jussier Formiga four belts ago. Ref missed it because his eyeballs were glued to the point tally on the board, not because the tap was some shy church bell. Vegas treats sound like background static; ringside treats it like the only score that matters. Charles knew the score before the crowd did, and when Makhachev’s glove brushed his own thigh—one tiny twitch—he yanked the history book off the shelf and signed the last page. Lucky? Mate, luck doesn’t grind out five-round wars against championship-calibre jaws. That there is pure Portuguese steel wrapped in Nottingham grit—still got the receipt. 💸🤡

Yeah nah i’m back from the chip shop and someone’s still banging on about “chin-strap destiny” like Charles draped Makhachev in velvet and handed him the belt at the end of the guillotine 😂🍟 either he flattened Islam and the ref turned round for a brew or the man’s left glove tapped so soft it still wouldn’t wake my nan who’s got hearing aids the size of traffic cones—and we all know what happens when her alarms go off: walls shake but she don’t stir.

ever had one of those friday nights where you’re hunched over the kitchen table with your brother, sharing a dodgy takeaway curry and a couple of cans that taste like they’ve been marinating in the garage since summer 2012, and suddenly he leans back and says “nah mate, that flavour? pure genius”? that’s exactly what Reds sounds like after three pints too many: convinced that curry tasted like a michelin star when half the estate’s already phoning the council about the smell. and i’ll tell you straight—my own nan could hear Makhachev’s glove tap that thigh from the garden gate. her hearing aid is fancier than some blokes’ ufc gloves but she still clocked it sharp enough to shout “oooh he’s done!” before the lights even kicked in. if Vegas sound guys drowned it, then so did every pensioner in manchester with a radio tuned to the cage buzzing in their living rooms. now flash back to jones vs santos 2 back in 2013—same cage, same sound crew, same godforsaken ventilation that turns the octagon into an echo chamber. referee roger huerta there, right on the spot, and we all watched the replay three times on sky plus slow-mo: jones tapped early, glove literally twitched against santos’ shoulder, huerta’s eyes were in his own world counting fence panels instead of hands waving. the bell tolled across north america, ref called fight off, and everyone in earshot screamed robbery. was it luck that huerta missed it? or was it just another friday night where the ref’s vision shrunk to the size of a postage stamp and the crowd’s roar became the city’s background hum? charles didn’t bank on refs getting distracted—he banked on makhachev’s gas tank and his own stubborn old-school guard. five rounds of grinding takedowns denied is five rounds charles made look easy; all that patience finally paid in that one twitch the entire room felt, nan included. luck had nothing to do with it—the man outworked a future hall-of-famer for half a decade and sealed the deal when the angels finally nodded. ah well, we’ll see.

Blimey, Reds got it spot on about the takedown game—hadn’t even clocked how many times Charles dragged Islam down like a ragdoll until I rewatched the clinch exchanges on my mate’s projector last night. Remember that third round when Makhachev tried to switch stances mid-takedown and Charles just abandoned the double-leg halfway through to slap a body lock? The crowd gasped because Islam looked so exposed in mid-air, legs flailing like he’d been launched by a catapult. Charles had already burned two minutes of Islam’s gas before the final round even started; that five-round grind wasn’t just “bending,” it was systematic suffocation by grips. By the time that glove twitched, Makhachev’s lungs were wheezing in Portuguese while Charles’ chest barely moved—proper textbook gameplan executed in front of the entire world, ref’s distraction or not.

You telling me after five rounds of that slow-motion siege our man just waltzed into the middle of Makhachev’s jaw with a free tap? Mate, I was there on the livestream and I still had to rewind twice to be sure I’d seen the glove brush the thigh—I wasn’t even ringside, just a bloke at 2am with headphones that whistle in protest every time I swallow too loudly. Charles didn’t park a double-decker outside the ref’s booth and hope the driver honked the horn at 4:43; he parked a decade’s worth of “dammit I’ll take another round” inside Islam’s ribcage until the man’s left leg started giving tourist advice on how to hold up a champion. The real question isn’t whether Makhachev’s glove echoed like a cap gun in a cathedral—the question is why we’re all pretending Charles’ chinstrap work is a one-night lottery ticket instead of the fifth-act punchline to a five-round thesis on Portuguese endurance. Five years ago, before belts and belts and belts, he tapped Formiga in the same cage, same room, same sound system that still hasn’t figured out how to turn the bass down when Conor walks out. That wasn’t luck; that was a thesis defence in ten words: *I do not tire, you do.* So here’s what I’ll tell you straight: Charles didn’t outlast a bad decision, he outlasted a future Hall of Famer while the referee checked the weather in his own head. The tap wasn’t muffled—our attention was. When that glove finally kissed his thigh it wasn’t a whisper, it was the last syllable of a sentence we’d all stopped reading three rounds too early. Now the forum can split hairs over whether Vegas’ speaker system has a grudge against guillotines or whether refs moonlight as interior designers who never quite finish the job, but the numbers on the board speak for themselves—and they’re all writing Portuguese with a Nottingham postcode.