Sean Brady thinks UFC welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena pulls the upset against Islam Makhachev.
Della Maddalena (18-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) defends his title against former lightweight champion Makhachev (27-1 MMA, 16-1 UFC) in the UFC 322 headliner on Nov. 15 from Madison Square Garden in New York.
Della Maddalena is coming off an upset win over Belal Muhammad at UFC 315, where he claimed the welterweight title by putting on a striking clinic. Brady sees moderate favorite Makhachev struggling to keep Della Maddalena on the ground.
“I think it’s a lot tougher of a fight for Islam than people are giving Jack credit for,” Brady said on UFC Unfiltered. “Jack’s very hard to hold down. He’s a big body, hits like a freight train, has knockout power and he’s showed that getting someone down doesn’t mean d*ck. Can you hold him down? Jack’s really good at creating scrambles, getting back to his feet, separating the hands. Like, we’d seen that with Belal.
“Gilbert (Burns) did better at taking Jack down than Belal did. He had better positions on him, but I don’t know. Selfishly for me, I want Islam to win because I want to fight Islam for a legacy thing, and I think I can beat Islam. I think I can beat anybody in the world, and I want my grappling to go against his grappling and see who’s better. I really would love for that to play out. But if I had to pick, and I know Jack would be the underdog, I would pick Jack.”
Brady (18-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC), who’s coming off a dominant submission of ex-champ Leon Edwards in March, also hopes to compete at UFC 322 against either Ian Machado Garry, Belal Muhammad, or Shavkat Rakhmonov.
