Belal Muhammad and the UFC were forced to choose from a relatively tight pole of opponents for his first title defense.
The welterweight champion dethroned Leon Edwards last summer at UFC 304 in Manchester, and would be his first defense against Shavkat Rakhmonov in May. Unfortunately, the undefeated competition was forced with injury after leaving a whole series of rivals in his wake.
Big names such as Ian Machado Garry and Kamaru Usman were excluded on the basis of their last fights. As a result, the promotion was forced to rearrange the UFC London Headliner from Edwards and to give the unbeaten Jack della Maddalena his chance on a world title.
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Belal Muhammad explains how UFC 315 Headliner decision was taken
After it turned out that Rakhmonov would not be available to fight on the date of 10 May for UFC 315, Belal Muhammad was confronted with a heavy test when naming a replacement opponent. The Welterweight champion will have been out for almost a year and had to get a title defense on the planned showcase.
As such, a number of big names were advertised and eventually the promotion landed on Jack della Maddalena. About his iteration of the Anik and Florian podcast 'Remember the Show', he described how the process went.
“We had the date before May 10,” he explained. “And then they told me that Shavkat was injured and it was like” Who is it going to be? ” 'So for myself I look at the names on the list.
“And you look at like Kamaru is number two, but he is on a three-fighter loss and his knees are probably 80 years old. So I doubted if they would give it to him, so then I might start watching [Sean] Brady.
“I have already beaten Brady, I have already beaten Leon [Edwards] So then I looked at Jack and he had the highest win reak. I had something like “Bro, I want to beat the line of another man, right?” We got Brady when he was 15-0, we defeated Leon who was Fight Win-Streak on a 12/13, so Jack now has the longest, let's go.
“I am a man where I don't care who it is in front of me, but they just threw away the names and then they were as if 'Shavkat was injured'. You wonder who it will be and they discuss it with You, but at the end of the day it will be what they choose. “
Joaquin Buckley was mentioned as another option for UFC 315 Main Event
Before Maddalena got the shot, Joaquin Buckley was another name that might have earned his way for a chance on the belt. In the big shake -up around UFC 310 when Muhammad was injured, he lost an opportunity to fight Ian Machado Garry, but in the end he demolished and stopped Colby Covington.
Now he is a legitimate competition with a victory over a former interim champion. But he did not fully build up streak from the Australian and was forced to wait a little longer for his shot at the world title.
“At first I wondered that it would be someone who would come out of losses,” Muhammad told Jon Anik after he had presented both Buckley and Garry as potential names that abuse. “The big names you look at with Shavkat from his Ian Garry, he would be next, but come from a loss.
“Then it's Kamaru; loss, Colby; loss. Okay so who has the longest line? Jack, but I look at his date at the end of March and I doubt he could turn around and you don't want a chance that he will lose that fight, because then it is back to Leon and I just dominated Leon.
“For the UFC it was the most logical because he has the longest series and he comes from Australia, they try to build that region there. [Buckley] I think there was a man who was talked about, but at the end of the day it just came down to who won the most victories at 170 pounds and that was Jack. “
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