Jack Della Maddalena Unseats Belal Muhammad in Memorable UFC 315 Main Event

Jack Della Maddalena made certain the world would remember his name.

The Dana White’s Contender Series graduate laid claim to the undisputed Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight crown with a five-round unanimous decision over Belal Muhammad in the UFC 315 headliner on Saturday at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Della Maddalena (18-2, 8-0 UFC) carried all three scorecards—48-47, 48-47 and 49-46—to his 18th consecutive victory.

Muhammad (24-4, 15-4 UFC) chose to stand with the Australian kickboxer for three rounds, foregoing the wrestling-centric approach that made him a champion. Della Maddalena capitalized, called upon kicks to all levels and cut loose with multi-punch combinations to the body and head. Muhammad picked up his pace and appeared to turn a corner in the fourth round, which gave way to an epic fifth. A close-range knee strike from Della Maddalena opened a cut underneath his counterpart’s left eye. Muhammad answered with a takedown and some ground-and-pound before upping his aggression in the standup once the challenger escaped to his feet. Violent exchanges ensued. Della Maddalena found another gear, let fly with crisp accurate punches and had the Chicago native reeling, but he did not have enough in the tank to procure the finish.

Meanwhile, Valentina Shevchenko waded through considerable difficulty to retain her undisputed women’s flyweight championship with a grimy unanimous decision over Manon Fiorot in the five-round co-main event. All three cageside judges scored it 48-47 for Shevchenko (25-4-1, 14-3-1 UFC).

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Fiorot (12-2, 7-1 UFC) entered the cage on the strength of a 12-fight winning streak and held her own despite appearing to suffer a broken nose in the first round. She took down Shevchenko in the second and engaged her in the clinch repeatedly across a tactical 25-minute affair. Fiorot scored with knees to the body and elbows on the break, all while racking up considerable control time in close quarters. Shevchenko countered effectively throughout, mixed in a few spinning attacks and sat down the off-balance challenger when she doubled up on right hands late in the fourth round. With the outcome still in doubt, they dueled one another in the clinch for much of the fifth round—neither woman gained a discernible advantage—and left their fate to the scorecards.

The defeat was Fiorot’s first since in nearly seven years.

Further down the card, Tristar Gym rep Aiemann Zahabi outlasted former UFC and World Extreme Cagefighting champion Jose Aldo to a unanimous decision in their three-round featherweight showcase. Zahabi (13-2, 7-2 UFC) swept the scorecards with 29-28 marks across the board and turned away mixed martial arts royalty in the process.

Aldo (32-10, 14-9 UFC) was strong out of the gate. He tore into the Canadian with brutal body shots, occasional leg kicks and multi-punch bursts to the head. Zahabi absorbed all the punishment and kept his foot on the accelerator with almost zombie-like persistence. Aldo wobbled him with a right hand in the third round, followed with a knee and then blasted him with a head kick as he returned to his feet. The Brazilian emptied his gas tank in his bid to finish, but Zahabi refused to cooperate and somehow weathered the storm. He bounced back late in the round, battered an exhausted Aldo in the clinch and forced him to retreat to his back after a failed takedown attempt. From there, Zahabi assaulted the Nova Uniao cornerstone with elbows that resulted in a cut to the forehead and significant swelling under the left eye. Aldo withstood the onslaught, but the decision was lost.

The 37-year-old Zahabi has won six fights in a row.

Elsewhere, burgeoning Team Borracha star Natalia Silva made her most significant move yet with a comprehensive unanimous decision over Alexa Grasso in their three-round women’s flyweight attraction. All three cageside judges scored it the same: 30-27 for Silva (19-5-1, 7-0 UFC), who has rattled off 13 straight victories.

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It was an exercise in frustration for Grasso (16-5-1, 8-5-1 UFC). Silva circled incessantly on the outside, bounded in with rapid-fire punches, showed a willingness to exchange when the situation required it and piled up points and damage with kicks to all levels. Her work resulted in multiple hematomas on Grasso’s face, and she opened a cut near the Lobo Gym standout’s left eye with a well-placed head kick in the third round.

Grasso, 31, has lost back-to-back bouts for the first time in her career.

Finally, ex-French paratrooper Benoit St. Denis rebounded from consecutive losses to Dustin Poirier and Renato Carneiro, as he dismissed Kyle Prepolec with an arm-triangle choke in the second round of their lightweight appetizer. A short-notice fill-in for Joel Alvarez, Prepolec (18-9, 0-3 UFC) raised the white flag 2:35 into Round 2.

St. Denis (14-3, 6-3 UFC) overwhelmed the former Samourai MMA champion with pace and aggression. He set the tone with a takedown inside the first 30 seconds of the first round, advanced to the back, threatened the neck with a rear-naked choke and applied his ground-and-pound. Prepolec survived but only prolonged the inevitable. St. Denis pinned him to the fence in the middle stanza, unleashed a hellacious barrage of elbows and bullied him back to the mat. From there, he framed the arm-triangle choke, cleared the guard and let his squeeze do the rest.

The loss snapped a three-fight winning streak for Prepolec.

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