Newcomer of the Year 2022 winner Jack Della Maddalena will be fighting at home in February.
Maddalena (13-2), who went 3-0 in his rookie UFC season, will face Randy Brown (16-4) in a welterweight match-up at UFC 284 in Perth, Australia on February 11, 2023.
News of the fight was first reported by Brown himself, with Maddalena confirming the date, and noting that five opponents had turned him down before he finally landed a dance partner.
Australia’s Maddalena earned Rookie of the Year honors from ESPN, as well as Newcomer of the Year from Cageside Press, after a stellar 2022 campaign. A winner on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2021, Maddalena debuted in the octagon against Pete Rodriguez at UFC 270 a year ago, earning a TKO stoppage inside of a round.
Two more TKOs followed, against Ramazan Emeev in June and Danny “Hot Chocolate” Roberts in November.
Brown, a former Ring of Combat welterweight champion, has been with the UFC since 2016. He’s currently on his best run since joining the promotion, having won four straight, most recently against Francisco Trinaldo.
UFC 284 is set to take place at the RAC Arena in Perth, Australia on Feb. 11, 2022 (Feb. 12 locally). Headlined by featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski moving to lightweight in an attempt to claim a second title against Islam Makhachev, the promotion’s second PPV of 2023 features the following pairings:
- Islam Makhachev (c) vs. Alexander Volkanovski – for the UFC lightweight championship
- Yair Rodríguez vs. Josh Emmett – for the UFC interim featherweight championship
- Loma Lookboonmee vs. Elise Reed
- Justin Tafa vs. Parker Porter
- Tyson Pedro vs. Zhang Mingyang
- Jimmy Crute vs. Alonzo Menifield
- Joshua Culibao vs. Melsik Baghdasaryan
- Shannon Ross vs. Kleydson Rodrigues
- Jack Jenkins vs. Don Shainis
- Nasrat Haqparast vs. Jamie Mullarkey
- Joel Álvarez vs. Zubaira Tukhugov
- Shane Young vs. Blake Bilder
- Jack Della Maddalena vs. Randy Brown
