{"id":415587,"date":"2026-01-17T15:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T15:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415587\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T15:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T15:40:12","slug":"islam-makhachev-surprised-by-jack-della-maddalenas-lack-of-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415587\/","title":{"rendered":"Islam Makhachev surprised by Jack Della Maddalena’s lack of wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Islam Makhachev<\/a> admits he expected Jack Della Maddalena<\/a> to show more resistance on the ground.<\/p>\n

Makhachev (28-1 MMA, 17-1 UFC) dominated Della Maddalena for five rounds<\/a> to claim the welterweight title at UFC 322 this past November. He took Della Maddalena down in all four of his attempts and had more than 19 minutes of control time.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

In his title-winning performance against Belal Muhammad<\/a>, Della Maddalena (18-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) showed off his ability to scramble back to his feet. However, against Makhachev, he had no answers.<\/p>\n

“Before me, he fought Belal, who also has strong wrestling,” Makhachev said in a translated interview with Match TV (h\/t Championship Rounds<\/a>). “Belal was taking him down, and Maddalena was good at getting back up after takedowns. But he’d always get up using the same move, the same reversal.<\/p>\n

“When I took him down and saw him try that same reversal on me, I was already prepared for it and defended it. That’s when I realized he had nothing else besides that move. I said to myself, ‘That’s it? You haven’t learned anything else? You don’t have any other skills to get back to your feet?’ That’s when I understood he was going to be there for a long time.”<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Prior to claiming the UFC welterweight title, Makhachev had defended his lightweight title a division record four times. He has a plethora of 170-pound contenders from Michael Morales, to Ian Machado Garry<\/a>, to Carlos Prates, and Kamaru Usman<\/a> vying for a title shot.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Islam Makhachev surprised how easily he wrestled Jack Della Maddalena<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Islam Makhachev admits he expected Jack Della Maddalena to show more resistance on the ground. Makhachev (28-1 MMA,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[33311,49,48,641,23591,23592,638,82,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-415587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-belal-muhammad","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-islam-makhachev","13":"tag-jack-della-maddalena","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415587","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=415587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}