Preview: UFC Fight Night 227 ‘Grasso vs. Shevchenko 2’

Welterweights

#14 WW | Jack Della Maddalena (15-2, 5-0 UFC) vs. #13 WW | Kevin Holland (25-9, 12-6 UFC)

ODDS: Della Maddalena (-148), Holland (+124)

This co-main event does not exactly fit with the theme of the night, but it should be an enjoyable exercise that helps sort out where these two fighters stand in the welterweight division. A middleweight at the time, Holland was one of the UFC’s breakout stars of 2020. His willingness to step in and keep taking fights amid the chaos of pandemic-era matchmaking kept him in front of fans, and his trash-talking style was a perfect fit for the otherwise-silent UFC Apex. Holland racked up four wins in a shade over four months in the back half of the year, and a sub-two-minute knockout of Ronaldo Souza set him up for a run towards title contention. Instead, 2021 saw Holland fall hard back to earth, mostly thanks to Derek Brunson and Marvin Vettori exposing his lack of defensive wrestling in one-sided main event losses. “Trailblazer” announced his intentions to cut down to welterweight ahead of 2022, and an interesting pivot has coincided with that cut down in weight. Holland’s personality overshadowed a solid bit of technical craft during his time at 185 pounds, but a lot of that has gone out the window in his new weight class, with his looking to leverage his massive size advantage against smaller opponents by throwing out some wild offense. Holland has hit a clear ceiling in fights against Khamzat Chimaev and Stephen Thompson, but victories like his July thrashing of Michael Chiesa show that he can be an absolute terror against a vast swath of welterweights. Still just 30 years old, there is plenty of time for Holland’s game to click into something worthy of title contention.

Australia’s Della Maddalena makes for an interesting Holland opponent. Beyond the offensive aggression that should make this an absolute firefight, Della Maddalena also needs to rebound from the first disappointing performance of his UFC career. Della Maddalena showed some promise as a hard-nosed striker in his 2021 win on Dana White’s Contender Series, but it was a surprise to see the UFC give some aggressive matchmaking early on. A debut against Warlley Alves fell through, but a sophomore effort against Ramazan Emeev looked to be exactly the type of fight where a talented prospect could get neutralized. Instead, Della Maddalena ran through Emeev with little effort, and from there, it was off to the races, with a hometown win in Perth over Randy Brown in February serving as a breakout and proof that the Australian was ready for bigger things. Thanks to some changes of both opponents and fight dates, Della Maddalena’s next bout wound up being against newcomer Bassil Hafez in July—a fight that he won but nowhere nearly as definitively as expected. Hafez did not get much done with his wrestling, but some poor grappling decisions from Della Maddalena allowed him to control a lot of the fight and made things closer than they needed to be. That likely will not be a concern here—if Holland initiates some grappling exchanges, it will likely be after things have gone south for Della Maddalena on the feet—but this could still be where the Australian meets his match. He was able to eventually march through Brown but had some issues against the former Ring of Combat champion’s reach early on, and he seems unlikely to knock the much more durable Holland head over heels like he did to “Rude Boy.” Holland’s form still is not the prettiest, so Della Maddalena might be able to land multiple hard strikes for each of the Texan’s and win an entertainingly brutal war of attrition. However, the lean is that Della Maddalena’s willingness to eat one to give one comes back to bite him here. The pick is Holland via second-round stoppage.

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Grasso vs. Shevchenko
Della Maddalena vs. Holland
Rosas Jr. vs. Mitchell
Zellhuber vs. Giagos
Padilla vs. Nelson
The Prelims