UFC veteran Matt Brown has come to the defense of Belal Muhammad regarding the strategy used in his recent welterweight title loss to Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 315. Muhammad has faced considerable criticism following the defeat.
Leading up to the fight, Muhammad expressed a desire to showcase his striking, specifically his “Canelo hands,” aiming to prove his boxing prowess against the known knockout artist Della Maddalena. Despite his established success through wrestling and relentless pressure that often overwhelmed opponents, and attempting nine takedowns during the fight, he is now being heavily criticized for his approach against the Australian striker.
Matt Brown strongly pushes back against the idea that poor game planning was the primary reason for Muhammad`s loss, arguing that this view overlooks Jack Della Maddalena`s effective performance in neutralizing Muhammad`s offense.
“It`s almost an irrelevant question because it didn`t matter what his game plan was,” Brown stated on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “Jack had an answer for everything that he did.” Brown added, “Yeah, if you`re on Belal`s camp, you`re probably looking back saying OK, we probably could have game planned differently but it`s hard to imagine that would have changed anything. When you go back to the drawing board for Belal, you`ve got a lot of drawing to do when you`re looking at a Jack Della Maddalena fight.”
With the fight largely staying on the feet, Della Maddalena consistently won key exchanges due to his superior boxing technique, reach, and power. While Muhammad had moments, he struggled to land significant strikes, and it was clear Della Maddalena`s connections were doing more damage.
Regarding Muhammad`s wrestling attempts, Brown highlights that it wasn`t necessarily a case of Muhammad abandoning his takedowns, but rather Della Maddalena effectively shutting them down with constant, successful defense.
“Jack`s wrestling looked great,” Brown commented. “Even when Belal got him down, he stood right back up, I think every time. I`m not remembering any time Belal held him down for any decent length of time. He used some tricky little things, hip toss type things to create some space. He was really good at staying off the cage.” He continued, “Even if Belal wasn`t able to take him down, I think that was kind of our assumption [Della Maddalena] was going to be held against the cage for most of the fight and it was going to be really, really boring. I think that`s what everybody was calling… It didn`t work out that way.”
Brown suggests that if Muhammad warrants any criticism for his performance, it should focus more on the types of strikes he chose against Della Maddalena, rather than a perceived failure to wrestle enough.
Muhammad appeared overly reliant on his boxing, which Brown foresaw as a potentially risky strategy against a skilled and powerful striker like Della Maddalena.
“It seemed that Belal was boxing with him a little bit more than I would have liked,” Brown stated. “If I was game planning for him, I would have liked to see him do more teeps or kicks and mix it up a little bit more, do more distance stuff. We already know Jack is a really good boxer. He`s very tight. Very technical. Looks great when he`s throwing hands.” Brown emphasized, “That`s the worst way to approach him. Whether you want to stand with him or you want to take him down. Even if you say you want to stand with him for a few rounds, let`s not just box with a boxer. The only thing I would have liked to see from Belal more was a Muay Thai/kickboxing style. Just boxing with a boxer, it just doesn`t make a lot of sense in my head.”
Ultimately, Brown ponders if Della Maddalena simply presents a stylistic challenge that Muhammad couldn`t overcome, regardless of his approach.
Brown notes that combat sports history is full of examples where fighters encounter opponents who are simply bad matchups, creating an insurmountable obstacle. While impossible to state definitively, Brown believes the evidence from UFC 315 strongly suggests this was the case for Muhammad.
“Belal has a lot learn from on this fight,” Brown concluded. “He`s got a lot that I think he can look at and improve on. I don`t know if it`s ever going to be enough to beat Jack the way that fight went the other night. I`m not sure there`s anything he can do matchup wise and sometimes that`s the thing is just the matchup. The fact is Jack had a perfect game plan. We can talk about Belal`s lack of game plan all day but Jack had a perfect game plan. He executed extremely well the entire fight.” He added, “I don`t know if there was anything [Belal] could have done to beat Jack. I don`t know if there`s anything he could do to beat Jack in the future.”
