UFC 315 Preview
The UFC is invading The Bell Center in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on Saturday, May 10th for UFC 315. The main event will be in the welterweight division as champion Belal Muhammad will be defending his title against #5 Jack Della Maddalena.
Muhammad will be making his first defense of the title since winning the belt with a unanimous decision victory over Leon Edwards at UFC 304 in July. The 36-year-old has not lost since 2019 and during that stretch he has gone 10-0-1.
The champion has a different mindset than most title holders heading into this fight. “We're still chasing the belt,” Muhammad said. “I'm not defending it. I'm still that challenger. I got to have the challenger’s mindset, and we're never satisfied. We want to be the best.”
“To be the best, we got to keep winning our next fight.”
Hard work has paid off for Muhammad. “This is where I always pictured myself,” Muhammad said. “I got what I always wanted, always dreamed of, and the hard work is starting to pay off. We're here now. These are the problems you wish for, right? The extra interviews, the extra talking, the media. But I'm happy because it was all worth it.”
The Chicago native is laser-focused on proving he is better than Maddalena. “I was in his place last fight; I was the challenger,” Muhammad said. “I was the guy that had my first moment to fight for the belt, so I know what he's thinking. I know what he's feeling. But the thing that he doesn’t realize is he's fighting a champion that has that same mindset. I'm still that guy that wants what he has. He has 17-fight winning streak. I want that win streak. I want to take that from him, and that mindset is going to give me time to keep me winning, to keep me hungry.”
Muhammad has an overall goal for his fighting career. "GOAT is the goal," Muhammad said. "I'm chasing GSP. I'm trying to catch up to him.”
Maddalena has won 17 straight fights since losing his first two fights as a pro. He is coming off a third round KO of former title challenger Gilbert Burns at UFC 299 a year ago. The Australian fighter has big plans for UFC 315.
“I’m going to try and finish him dominantly, that would be the way I’d like it to go down, a dominant finish. Then, it’s up to him at that point on what’s next for him, Della Maddalena said.
The 28-year-old knows he is in for the biggest challenge of his career. “Obviously, this is the big one,” Della Maddalena said. “I’ve been working this for a long time. But yeah, it’s just another fight. It’s a five-rounder. I was prepping for a five-rounder. Now I’m fighting the best guy in a five-rounder. I put all the work in. It’s the toughest fight of my life.”
Muhammad has made predictions that he is going to show Canelo Álvarez like boxing in this fight. Maddalena commented, “I’ll Floyd Mayweather his ass, take him to school.”
The co-main event of the evening will be for the women’s flyweight title as two-time champion Valentina Shevcheno will fight #2 Manon Fiorot.
Shevchenko regained the title she held for nearly five years in her last fight with a unanimous decision victory over Alexa Grasso at UFC 304 in a trilogy fight. Since 2018 she has gone 10-1-1 and is considered one of the greatest women’s fighters of all-time.
The champion reacted to Fiorot’s trash talk after she regained the title. “She started to throw this Tweet a little bit too soon, in my opinion, because I just fought,” Shevchenko said. “It was one month after the fight. But I understand, she was desperate. She had a little bit [of a delay]. But I think everything, at the end, worked perfectly.”
The talking by Fiorot does not bother Shevchenko. “My experience in martial arts, it’s so many years. I started when I was five and all these years before joining UFC I already was 17-time world champion in Muay Thai, in MMA, in kickboxing. So imagine how many different characters I was able to meet and how many words they could say. If everything would bother me, I never would achieve what I achieved. I think it’s my biggest ability to block all the energy that’s happening around and focus on your main goal.”
She concluded, “I like this, when people go in with so much confidence,” Shevchenko said. “They say, ‘It’s going to be a finish,’ something like that. But I like this moment when they feel frustration in the ring, inside of the octagon, when they feel that any plan that they had, it doesn’t work. This is the best feeling, to see them breaking up.”
Fiorot has won 12 straight fights and most recently defeated Erin Blanchfield by unanimous decision last March. She also has wins over Rose Namajunas and Katlyn Chookagian.
The challenger continues to dismiss the champion as a threat to her. “I think she’s not the best woman in the world,” Fiorot said. “She’s not as dominant as she was a few years ago because of the level of the division. When I saw her fight against Taila Santos, it was a split decision, and it was tight. The same thing with her fight with Grasso — losing that one fight.
“Yeah, definitely the level of the Flyweight division is higher than in the past.”
Fiorot is listed as the betting favorite but is in the for the toughest fight of her life. A win for Fiorot could shake things up at flyweight and could be fighting the winner of former champion #1 Alexa Grasso and #5 Natalia Silva also on the main card.
The rest of the main card:
Jose Aldo -220 vs. Aiemann Zahabi +175, bantamweight
Natalia Silva -225 vs. Alexa Grasso +175, women's flyweights
Benoit Saint Denis -1115 vs. Kyle Prepolec +750, lightweights
ESPN+ Prelims:
Lee Jeong Yeong -127 vs. Daniel Santos +102, featherweights
Mike Malott -200 vs. Charles Radtke +160, welterweights
Modestas Bukauskas -110 vs. Ion Cuțelaba -110, light heavyweights
Jasmine Jasudavicius -335 vs. Jessica Andrade +250, women's flyweights
Navajo Stirling -278 vs. Ivan Erslan +215, light heavyweights
Joshua Van -480 vs. Bruno Silva +360, middleweights
