On the one hand, the musical champions thing that the UFC has going on in the wake of UFC 315 is kind of fun, so long as newly crowned welterweight champ Jack Della Maddalena doesn’t get any bright ideas of going up to challenge Dricus du Plessis. For as good as Islam Makhachev has been for the past decade, he’s still trying to distinguish himself from his coach and mentor, Khabib Nurmagomedov, his sauna soulmate who has been attached at his hip for as long as there’s been MMA coverage.
Now that Della Maddalena has taken out Belal Muhammad to win the welterweight title, it seems that Makhachev is moving up to do what Nurmagomedov never did. That is, go win a title in a second weight class. If ever there was a moment for Makhachev to create his own legend, that time is now.
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What is less clear after UFC 315 in Montreal on Saturday night is whether Makhachev will vacate his lightweight title as he goes in search of that history. We didn’t get immediate clarification because UFC CEO Dana White didn’t attend the post-fight press conference to provide it. Makhachev himself seems to think he can hold onto his 155-pound belt as he attempts to add another to the collection. That, of course, would diminish some of the other bold moves going on around him.
UFC 315 was set up like a Week 17 in the NFL wild-card picture. It was full of scenarios that would determine who’d be facing who, depending on the outcome.
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If Muhammad wins — Makhachev, Belal’s bosom buddy, remains at lightweight and defends his title for the fifth time against Ilia Topuria.
If Della Maddalena wins — Makhachev moves up to face “JDM” for the welterweight title now that his buddy is out of the way, and Topuria faces Charles Oliveira for the lightweight title.
We knew going into UFC 315 there would be many fates riding on the main event. Topuria, who vacated his own title at featherweight to move up and challenge Makhachev, has been waiting to find out if he’d get his wish. Oliveira, who has been a step removed in this wait-and-see matchmaking food chain, seemingly benefits the most, as he now (presumably) gets thrust into some form of a title shot against Topuria. He defaults into a big spot.
Lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan? He’s like the little girl who got absorbed into the television set in “Poltergeist.” You can hear his warbling cries for help but you can’t see him.
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Not that any of what I just laid out is what the public at large wanted. Or at least not the vast majority. What fans want is a fight between Topuria and Makhachev, two of the best pound-for-pound champions going, each in the primes of their careers. That fight didn’t have to be a pie-in-the-sky event. It was sitting right there for us to have.
It was right freaking there. And who knows, maybe it still is. In a game where we are denied so much, optimism has a way of sprouting like a weed through the sidewalk.
Yet the danger in having an interested third party play so heavily into a title fight like Saturday night’s is that big-picture rooting interests get in the way of a masterful performance. Perhaps the focus should’ve been less on what’s next and instead zeroed in on what’s happening. Because what happened was that Giacomo Della Maddalena, as he was so regally referred to after White wrapped the belt around his waist, did to Muhammad what for a dozen fights nobody else could.
That is, he made Muhammad fight on his terms.
Jack Della Maddalena handled Belal Muhammad like no one has in years. (Eric Bolte-Imagn Images
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
He shut down a dictator by becoming one.
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He let the world know that there are levels involved in earning a Picasso nose like his.
“JDM” lit Muhammad up in the first two rounds, staying on his front foot, moving forward, landing crisp shots and thwarting takedowns. By the end of the second round, the champ was — somewhat surprisingly — in a two-round deficit on the scorecards.
What was more impressive is that Muhammad actually came to life. He turned into the pacesetting, level-changing human onslaught who dethroned Leon Edwards last year. He didn’t stay holstered. He was actively turning the tables, especially in the fourth round, when he forced Della Maddalena into the deep waters.
We didn’t go without seeing Belal’s best.
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Yet in the fifth, it was Della Maddalena who dug deep. He landed the bigger shots. He hurt and staggered Muhammad. He opened the champ’s nose and split his lip, as if to paint a picture of what it’s like to stand in front of him for five rounds. He wasn’t going to be denied, and in the end he left no doubt. He won the fight clear and definitively, without controversy and/or regrets.
As he begins his run as the new 170-pound king, restoring Australia’s status as a manufacturer of champions, he turned a neat trick. He made the idea of him defending that title against Makhachev feel like something more than a consolation prize. He made it feel like maybe Makhachev should be careful what he wishes for, as there’s a buzzsaw now lying in wait. Now it seems like it might be “JDM” who destroys all of tomorrow’s parties, if only because we were slow to understand he was the life of the party all along.
Will the UFC make Makhachev jettison his lightweight belt? It’s hard to imagine Topuria fighting Oliveira for anything other than the vacated title. But from the Della Maddalena perspective, none of it matters. He has his own thing he’s protecting. And if Saturday night told us anything, it’s that snatching it out of his hands might not be as easy as the UFC’s most famous division jumper believes it to be.
