UFC 284 Results: Islam Makhachev, Yair Rodriguez Wins Headline Main Card

Islam Makhachev and Yair Rodriguez walked away from UFC 284 with gold around their waist from the RAC Arena in Perth, Australia.

Makhachev was the last fighter of the night to have his hand raised. He retained his lightweight championship with a unanimous decision win over Alexander Volkanovski that was a much more difficult task than anticipated.

Volkanovski faced a daunting task in moving up to lightweight. The 145-pounder was giving up a lot of size to Makhachev but made the judges' jobs difficult by hanging in the pocket with the champion, landing some serious leather and nullifying a lot of Makhachev's usually dominant wrestling.

Ultimately, he came up just short of becoming a two-division champion but left the door open for a potential return to lightweight.

For now, he'll have to turn his focus to Rodriguez. He put forth a tremendous effort to become the interim featherweight titleholder against Josh Emmett.

Now fight fans have a matchup of those two to look forward to.

Here's a look at the quick results from UFC 284 along with a closer look at the main card bouts.

Main Card

Islam Makhachev def. Alexander Volkanovski via unanimous decision (48-47 x2, 49-46)

Yair Rodriguez def. Josh Emmett via submission (triangle choke) (Round 2, 4:19)

Jack Della Maddalena def. Randy Brown via sub (rear-naked choke) (Round 1, 2:13)

Justin Tafa def. Parker Porter via first-round KO (1:06)

Jimmy Crute vs. Alonzo Menifield scored a majority draw (29-27, 28-28 x2)

Prelims

Modestas Bukauskas def. Tyson Pedro via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28 x2)

Joshua Culibao def. Melsik Baghdasaryan via submission (rear-naked choke) (Round 2, 2:02)

Kleydson Rodrigues def. Shannon Ross via first-round TKO (0:59)

Jamie Mullarkey def. Francisco Prado via unanimous decision (30-27 x3)

Jack Jenkins def. Don Shainis via unanimous decision (30-27 x2, 29-28)

Loma Lookboonmee def. Elise Reed via submission (rear-naked choke) (Round 2, 0:44)

Blake Bilder def. Shane Young via unanimous decision (30-27 x2, 29-28)

Elves Brenner def. Zubaira Tukhugov via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 30-27)

Yair Rodriguez has always shown championship-level potential in moments. On Saturday night in Perth, he put it all together.

The 30-year-old beat up Josh Emmett's body with kicks and followed up with punches in the first round. The two featherweights put on an exciting first stanza with Emmett countering Rodriguez's aggression and scoring a takedown in the latter half.

But that didn't deter Rodriguez. He went right back to aggressively attacking in the first round. He touched up Emmett on the feet and eventually forced his opponent to once again go to his ground game.

This time, he was waiting with a well-executed triangle choke that earned the win and the interim belt.

It was an excellent performance from Rodriguez that should build him up as a legitimate test for Alexander Volkanovski at the featherweight division.

Given his spot in the main event challenging for the lightweight belt, that's good news for the 145-pound division.

Jack Della Maddalena's MMA career may have started with two losses, but his UFC career has been nothing but first-round finishes.

Della Maddalena wasted no time picking up his fourth first-round finish in as many fights under the promotion's banner. Randy Brown was a step up in competition, but you certainly couldn't tell from watching the fight.

The Australian went right to work with his boxing, and when he connected with his punches, Brown was in immediate trouble. He went to the mat, and Della Maddalena showed the ability to finish a fight on the crowd by locking on to a choke and forcing the tap.

It was as impressive a performance as one could expect from Della Maddalena. The 26-year-old still has to prove he can have success when someone inevitably lasts beyond the first round with him.

Then again, it's clearly going to take a high-caliber fighter to test those limits.

For now, this was a big win in front of Della Maddalena's hometown.

Justin Tafa wasted no time in showing off his skills. It took just one punch for him to sit down Parker Porter in the only heavyweight matchup on the main card.

Porter was all too willing to get into a slugfest with Tafa and quickly learned that wasn't the best approach. He came into striking range with a looping punch but was met with a tight left hook from Tafa that turned out his lights.

Tafa has been away from the cage for more than a year after suffering an injury that forced him to pull out of a scheduled July 2022 fight against Don'Tale Mayes.

The 29-year-old has now won back-to-back fights. He's going to need to continue to make up for lost time if he wants to move up the heavyweight rankings.

After starting his UFC career 1-3, he's starting to put together his skills and prove he has some potential.

Jimmy Crute and Alonzo Menifield delivered an action-packed three-round fight without a satisfying conclusion to kick off the main card. The two fought to a majority draw with two of the judges scoring the fight 28-28 while one judge saw it 29-27 for Crute.

Crute and Menfield went at one another with bad intentions throughout the fight. Crute's best moments came when he was able to wrestle, score takedowns and threaten with submissions. Menifield came close to finishing the fight with his strikes

Given how exciting the fight was, it wouldn't be surprising to see these two run it back. But Menifield has to be disappointed that he couldn't get the win.

He was penalized a point for grabbing the fence in Round 2 and that turned out to be the deciding factor.

Either way, this was a fight that should raise the stock of both men. Crute showed incredibly toughness and resilience while Menifield showed his explosiveness and power will continue to make him a threat in the division.