Jack Della Maddalena reveals surprising aspect of Islam Makhachev fight that he thinks will be easier than his title win

Jack Della Maddalena believes it’ll be easier to strike against Islam Makhachev than it was Belal Muhammad

Michael Bisping recently said that Jack Della Maddalena’s win over Belal Muhammad was a “perfect warm up fight” for Islam Makhachev.

The title challenger was able to keep the fight standing and use his superior striking skills to consistently land damage on the champion across the five round duration.

With questions as to whether Makhachev is too big of a favorite coming into this one, there has been a lot of talk about how he will fare moving up to welterweight.

Della Maddalena, however, believes that it isn’t just his size and power that will cause his first title challenger some big issues.

The Australian spoke in an interview with The West Sport earlier this year where he gave his initial thoughts on the matchup shortly after winning the belt.

Della Maddalena explained why he believes that despite a lot of people praising Makhachev’s striking, the stand-up exchanges will be even easier for him than they were against Muhammad.

“I think Islam Makhachev is a better version of Belal. I think his striking on the feet, I even think it’s easier than Belal because he’ll just stay in one stance. He’s [got] more [of a] traditional style. But yeah, he’s the pound-for-pound number one so it’s a tough fight. I guess we’ll just watch all of his fights again, make a solid game plan, and then just start working at it from pretty much now.”

Jack Della Maddalena planned to kick off his preparations by working with Alexander Volkanovski

All the way back in May, Jack Della Maddalena was already making plans for how he was going to begin his training camp for this fight.

The welterweight champion has the benefit of having someone in his circle who gave Islam Makhachev one of the toughest fights of his career.

Some still believe that Alexander Volkanovski should’ve beaten Makhachev in their first fight at UFC 284, which makes him a huge asset ahead of UFC 322.

“Yeah, 100%,” Della Maddalena said when asked about training with Volkanovski by The West Sport. “After the last two fights, I’ve spent a bit of time in Wollongong so yeah, I think that’ll probably be the first stop. We’ll go to Wollongong, talk to Volk, see what he reckons.”