When the Eagle soared: Makhachev’s early UFC nights that still make our chests swell with pride!
i still remember the first time i saw islam light up the cage, mustve been that little event in atlantic city, the one nobody talks about anymore, the crowd was tiny, like half the room had gone out for a smoke when they called his name. he just walked in like it was sunday afternoon sparring, that calm you see on his face even now — absolute bullseven years ago, nobody outside dagestan knew the name makhachev like we do now, but that night he carried the whole room on his back.
Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
man i was chugging a warm flat coke in some dive bar in surry hills with like three other madmen up on the telly just staring at the screen like it was gonna start its own podcast, 9pm kickoff and half the punters were talking about the footy draw ah well nowt to do!
On the terraces since I was a kid.
remember that tiny tourney in montreal where islam fought that kid from belgium, what was his name... ah yea, joachim a few amateurs before atlantic city and the crowd there was maybe fifty drunks in a church basement with sticky floors but islam just took that guy's legs out with kicks i swear i thought my heart stopped when that spinning back kick went off like a gunshot echoing off the walls what a quiet little animal he is in life but oh man when he's in that cage you just know — same face, same calm, like some kind of dagestani ghost who shows up to ruin lives between bread deliveries
Been here longer than some have followed.
Right, so that first Atlantic City crowd, all of fifty souls maybe, half of them already halfway to the parking lot for a smoke—that’s the night we saw the real thing take shape. No light show, no pay-per-view glow, just a quiet Dagestani kid walking in like it was Tuesday sparring, no need to announce himself because the room felt the shift before he even lifted a glove. Same face, same stillness, yet the moment his heel left the mat for that first overhand right I swear the whole basement held its breath. You could feel the floor shake under you, not from the size of the venue but from the precision—like a rifle shot in a church basement. Three years later, back at 300, that same stillness explodes into a nanosecond knockout that still makes grown men grin in their living rooms, and all of a sudden we’re the ones laughing because anyone who blinked missed the whole thing. That’s the line he drew: early was poetry, now is a laser-guided shockwave, but the soul’s unchanged—the calm never cracks, only the results do.
Do the math before you argue.
ah yeah but you’re still leaving out the one that started it all proper—that tiny show in abu dhabi just before atlantic city, when he was still in that weird grey zone of “islam makhachev? sounds like a model name” but the organisers stuck him on the regional undercard against some portuguese journeyman who’d been knocking around bellator like a lost tourist. two minutes in he catches the poor lad with that left cross we now all copy in sparring but back then we were all just going “what was that?” slow motion on my phone at 3am and i nearly threw it across the room because my flatmate was snoring and it went in so clean you could hear the impact in the clip before the crowd even reacted. then the ref was already waving it off before the bell and that portuguese guy just stood there blinking like he’d been slapped by a ghost, and islam just walked back to his corner, no drama, no chest bump, just adjusted his glove and drank some water like it was a normal wednesday. the broadcast cut away to the main card before they even replayed it—nobody cared, nobody knew—but the people in the seats that night felt something shift, like the first time you hear a band live before they blow up and you think “i saw them when they were terrible but i was still in the room” except this time it was the opposite, we were in the room when he was already lethal.
Seen it all, lads.
My left nut twitched when I saw that Portuguese dude’s face in Abu Dhabi—like he’d just got his WiFi password stolen by a ninja while I was chugging warm flat coke in Surry Hills and nearly spat it all over my cat. Islam strolled in with the energy of a guy about to return a library book, tapped gloves like “hey mate”, then—BANG—left cross so clean the ref’s hand was still hovering in the air when the PT tag clipped. The whole arena went "…what?" like a group chat when someone drops a true fact at 3am. The poor journeyman’s face? Absolute *"I just got personally offended by a ghost."* Islam just sipped water and adjusted his glove like he’d just won bingo night. Post-fight? Broadcaster cut to a sponsor ad. Classic. The only person who cared was my flatmate’s hamster—he squeaked so loud he thought it was the 11pm treats. Good times, lads. Good times. 🤣🍿
Only serious one here — barely.