5 – Gilbert Burns VS Jack Della Maddalena
Jack Della Maddalena had a precipitous rise as one of the best prospects to come from Dana White’s Contender Series. His performance on that show against Ange Loosa won him one of the best fights in the program’s history, and he followed it up with four straight first round UFC finishes that got him into the top-15 at welterweight. Since then he won two split decisions, both of which he deserved the nod in, but his performance against Bassil Hafez should trouble fans of the Australian ahead of his matchup with Gilbert Burns at UFC 299. Despite almost finishing Hafez multiple times and destroying his body over the course of three rounds, JDM displayed flawed wrestling defense, often jumping for guillotines instead of actually defending takedowns. Still, he earned ‘Fight of the Night’ for that war to go with the three ‘Performance of the Night’ bonuses he got for his three previous finishes, making it four bonuses in six fights.
Burns will be licking his chops when watching back that Hafez fight, but Maddalena has displayed a cool head in bad spots and dynamic scrambling ability in other bouts, even if he almost got submitted against Loosa and Ramazan Emeev. Gilbert’s wrestling ability and world class Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu potentially give him the key to defeating Jack, but Maddalena also has the key to defeating Burns. Owning one of the best jabs in MMA, with which the Australian constantly pops his opponents and controls range expertly, mean he wields the main tool which has given ‘Durinho’ trouble in the past. Even aside from being knocked down by Dan Hooker and Kamaru Usman’s jab, Burns often struggles to get into his preferred range against opponents who control it with their lead hand. Although he has shown the ability to go to war, such as against Khamzat Chimaev, Giblert does have a suspect chin at times, which is less due to any physical flaws than his habit of coming forward aggressively with sketchy footwork, little head movement, and bad tracking of incoming strikes which means they often catch him off guard.
JDM’s power and expert boxing could make this a quick night at the office for him, but the same is true for Gilbert’s grappling. This match up which seems binary on paper nonetheless could take several turns and become a war in several dimensions due to the dynamic abilities of each fighter in their weaker realms, despite their usual fatal flaws. A new welterweight contender could emerge on Saturday night in Miami, or an old one could reassert his position near the top. Either way, fans are in for a treat of a high-level and compelling mixed martial arts match in this UFC 299 scrap.
