Pimblett Says Evloev QUIT — Makhachev Calls Him a REAL MAN
“Evloev quit there for me, like. Just rolled over.”
Pimblett says Evloev quit at UFC 333. Makhachev calls him a real man. Evloev praised the champion who beat him.
Paddy Pimblett watched the UFC 333 main event and saw a man give up. Islam Makhachev watched the same fight and saw a real man.
Two verdicts, one finish, and they could not be further apart.
Alexander Volkanovski kept his featherweight title on Saturday, October 24, at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, stopping Movsar Evloev by technical knockout (punches) at 4:54 of round 2. Referee Marc Goddard stepped in with the challenger on the canvas.
Evloev entered the fight 20-0. He left it 20-1, with his first professional loss. That much is not in dispute. What the last seconds meant — that is where the two men split.
Pimblett's Verdict
Pimblett gave his verdict in a UFC 333 reaction video on his own YouTube channel. In his view, Evloev could have survived to the end of the round.
"Evloev quit there for me, like. Just rolled over," Pimblett said. "When there's five seconds left, you just gotta keep moving so the fight stays on. You can't start just covering up."
That is Pimblett's opinion, stated as his opinion. He did not say the stoppage was wrong. He said Evloev, in his view, stopped fighting back when the round was almost over.
Pimblett had called both title fights right. "Two 'and stills'. I said Volk and (Petr) Yan to win, so I'm happy there," he said. "My predictions aren't normally always right, but they were spot on tonight."
Makhachev's Verdict
Makhachev answered with the opposite verdict, and he did it without arguing about the fight at all. He shared a screenshot from Evloev's post-fight interview on his Instagram story and praised his compatriot's character.
"A real man," Makhachev wrote about Evloev. "A good brother to everyone around him. That's worth more than any championship belts."
No tactics. No breakdown of the final seconds. For Makhachev, the story was not how Evloev lost. It was how he carried the loss.
Evloev's Own Words
Evloev himself had already set that tone in the octagon, in his post-fight interview with Daniel Cormier. He did not complain about the stoppage. He praised the man who beat him.
"It was a terrible fight," Evloev said. "He's like good wine. Older, stronger, better. He's truly a legend. He's still good, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to be here."
"Alex is a great champion, and I'm glad to be here to share the cage with him. Better to lose to the guy like him than to somebody who is not good like him. Thank you."
That is the third voice in this story, and it sides with neither verdict directly. Evloev did not claim he quit, and he did not claim he was robbed. He said he lost to a legend, and he thanked Abu Dhabi.
The Fight Behind the Argument
Evloev arrived in Abu Dhabi as an undefeated featherweight contender, after beating Lerone Murphy, Aljamain Sterling, Arnold Allen and Diego Lopes. Volkanovski, now 29-4, was defending the title he had regained, and he finished the challenger late in the second round.
Pimblett's criticism is about those final seconds. Makhachev's praise is about everything after them. Both men watched the same finish. One saw a fighter stop moving. The other saw a man stand up, in defeat, and speak with grace.
The Rest of the Video
Pimblett, in the same video, also looked elsewhere on the card. He called Lone'er Kavanagh "a future champ" after Kavanagh's first-round stoppage of Temirov, saying Kavanagh "deserves a bonus for that." That is supporting context, not the argument — but it shows the video was not only about Evloev.
So the argument will run on. Was it a quit, as Pimblett says? Or was it a real man's defeat, as Makhachev says? Evloev's own answer, given before either man spoke, was simpler: he lost to a great champion, and he was grateful to share the cage with him.
