UFC lightweight fighter Islam Makhachev put on a grappling show on Sunday with a third-round submission win over Drew Dober at UFC 259 inside the Apex in Las Vegas.

A native of Dagestan in Russia just like Khabib Nurmagomedov, Makhachev returned to the Octagon after a 17-month layoff, according to CBS Sports.

Talking about his inactivity, he said, “This is not my fault because 2020 was very crazy. I lost a lot of my close friends and close people and I cancelled my three fights. That’s why you for a long time don’t see me.”

This marked Makhachev’s first fight since the death of his longtime coach, Nurmagomedov’s father, Abdulmanap last year. Nurmagomedov was present in in Makhachev’s corner along with Javier Mendez of American Kickboxing Academy.

Makhachev was seen to be quite comfortable right from the beginning and changed his position continuously to create several  submission opportunities, that includes an arm bar in the closing seconds of Round 1.

He said, “I couldn’t strike with him because he had a very large punch so I just took the easy way and took him down and grinded with him.”

As he continued his transitions in the second round as well, he secured an arm triangle to produce a tap from Dober at 1:37 in the final round.