As it turned out, Jack
Della Maddalena and Belal
Muhammad were the ideal dance partners for a memorable
championship clash.
The welterweight combatants earned “Fight of the Night” and $50,000
apiece for their spirited battle in the UFC 315
headliner at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on
Saturday night. The action only increased as the fight wore on,
culminating in a frenetic final round where Della Maddalena put a
final stamp on his unanimous decision victory to claim 170-pound
gold.
Elsewhere, Jasmine
Jasudavicius pocketed a $50,000 “Performance of the Night”
check for a dominant victory over Jessica
Andrade in a preliminary flyweight contest. The Canadian took
the former strawweight champion down with ease, landed
ground-and-pound and then elicited a tap with a rear-naked choke at
the 2:40 mark of Round 1.
Finally, Marc-Andre
Barriault took home the evening’s other $50,000 “Performance of
the Night” award for a violent finish of Bruno Silva
in a preliminary middleweight affair. Barriault put his adversary
away with a series of elbows to the side of the head against the
cage, rendering him unconscious 1:27 into the opening frame. Silva
had to be carried from the Octagon on a stretcher afterward.