Della Maddalena wins Muhammad's belt in slugfest

Jack Della Maddalena defeated Belal Muhammad successful a grueling five-round battle, earning a unanimous determination to go the caller welterweight champion Saturday nighttime successful the main lawsuit of UFC 315 astatine the Bell Centre successful Montreal, Canada.

Fighting retired of Perth, Australia, Maddalena (18-2) was crisp successful the striking department, arsenic helium neutralized Muhammad's guardant unit and outstruck his hostile 200-155. The warfare of attrition near some fighters battered and bruised, but Della Maddalena landed the bigger punches and avoided Muhammad's takedowns.

The judges scored the bout 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46 for Della Maddalena.

Della Maddalena was successful the close spot astatine the close clip for the rubric opportunity. Originally scheduled to look Leon Edwards successful March, the Australian was pulled from that combat and placed into a rubric combat with Muhammad erstwhile Shavkat Rakhmonov was unavailable owed to a lingering injury.

Muhammad (11) and Della Maddalena (17) entered the combat riding double-digit unbeaten streaks, but it would beryllium Della Maddalena who would widen his tally with a scintillating show successful beforehand of 19,786 fans who witnessed a combat acold much breathtaking than galore expected.

Muhammad's self-imposed committedness to striking proved to beryllium his undoing. He fought the archetypal and 2nd rounds astir exclusively connected the feet and didn't unafraid his archetypal takedown of the combat until the 4th round. By then, it was excessively precocious arsenic Della Maddalena had made his people down a crisp pb close manus and region control.

The triumph opens the doorway for lightweight champion Islam Makhachev to determination up to welterweight and beryllium the archetypal combatant to situation Della Maddalena for the 170-pound rubric successful hopes of becoming a two-division champion. Makhachev announced that helium would marque the determination lone if Muhammad, with whom helium has trained with, mislaid Saturday.