Islam makf continued his March towards all-time great status on Saturday posting a fifth round submission went over Dustin porier to close out UFC 302 it's the third consecutive successful title defense for the lightweight champion and his 14th consecutive Victory overall the former number brings him into a multi-way tie for the most consecutive successful defenses in the division and the latter nudges him one win ahead of his longtime teammate and now coach khib nurov in terms of consecutive victories inside the Octagon each timeout the 32-year-old champion continues answering whatever questions remain about him and doing it in a manner that forces you to consider that he just might be the best lightweight in the history of the sport makach Tapped Out Charles Oliva to win the title running through him in Abu Dhabi his first title defense came in an instant classic with Alexander volkanovski at the time considered to be the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet his second came in a short notice rematch with the Australian one he ended in 3 minutes Saturday night he bested porier a beloved Challenger looking to score the one win that has eluded him throughout his career and he did it by showing grit tenacity and the kind of keen finishing instincts that we traditionally celebrate in the heat of a competitive fight blood streaming down his face from a gnarly Cut Above his eye makach turned to scramble into a finishing opportunity and took determining the outcome of the fight into his own hands makf is a complete skilled dominating force that happily accepts every challenge placed before him and yearns to keep proving himself against the best competition possible because he's faced three of the most popular most celebrated good guys in the sport over his last four outings it feels like makach is always positioned as the bad guy in these matchups the guy you're supposed to cheer against not celebrate and as a result his great and the impressiveness of what he's doing doesn't quite resonate as much as it should makach is getting dangerously close to prompting conversations about where he fits in the pantheon of alltime greats if we're not there already