{"id":289163,"date":"2025-11-17T15:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T15:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/289163\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T15:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T15:57:08","slug":"michael-bisping-credits-jack-della-maddalena-for-not-taking-easy-way-out-at-ufc-322","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/289163\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Bisping credits Jack Della Maddalena for not taking ‘easy way out’ at UFC 322"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Bisping saw the will to win fade from Jack Della Maddalena as time wore on in his UFC 322<\/a> title fight against Islam Makhachev, but thinks respect is owed for making it to the final bell.<\/p>\n

Della Maddalena (18-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) had his reign as welterweight champion brought to an end Saturday when he lost a lopsided unanimous decision<\/a> to Makhachev (28-1 MMA, 17-1 UFC) at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Aussie was controlled for 19 minutes and 10 seconds of a 25-minute fight, and landed just 30 total strikes over the entirety of the contest.<\/p>\n

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There’s viral footage of Della Maddalena’s corner berating him<\/a> to stop getting down on himself has led many to question if the desire for victory left along the way and it was purely survival instinct.<\/p>\n

UFC Hall of Famer Bisping saw those signs, but hails Della Maddalena for forcing the judges to award the belt to Makhachev on the scorecards rather than giving up a finish.<\/p>\n

“There was a lot of resistance on the face of Jack,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel<\/a>. “He looked miserable. He looked like he couldn’t wait for this fight to end, and I’m not saying that to insult Jack. Far from it. In fact, I’m saying the opposite. He could’ve taken the easy way out several times. Islam was trying to finish him.<\/p>\n

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“All he could’ve done is not resist. But the man was fighting, he was trying to get back to his feet, his coach is giving him a hard time in the corner. They’re all frustrated with him because they just want the best for him, but it wasn’t meant to be. Islam dominated the fight. It was one-way traffic. It was pretty easy.”<\/p>\n

After injuries sidelined Della Maddalena for nearly 18 months, he returned in May to capture the belt<\/a> from then-champ Belal Muhammad. He was tasked with beating an all-time great in Makhachev for his first defense and came up short, but he remains at the highest tier of a rapidly evolving and improving 170-pound weight class.<\/p>\n

Can he make it back to the pinnacle? Bisping rates it as an extremely difficult task.<\/p>\n

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“Unlucky for Jack,” Bisping said. “He’ll be back. I don’t know if he’ll be champion again because the welterweight division is absolutely stacked. It’s the best division in all of mixed martial arts right now.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Michael Bisping gives Jack Della Maddalena credit after UFC 322 loss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Bisping saw the will to win fade from Jack Della Maddalena as time wore on in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,131017,641,23591,23592,37412,30468,638,82,640,10870],"class_list":["post-289163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-famer-bisping","tag-fighting","tag-islam-makhachev","tag-jack-della-maddalena","tag-madison-square-garden","tag-michael-bisping","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-welterweight-champion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}