Jack Della Maddalena on Islam Makhachev loss

Jack Della Maddalena says the Islam Makhachev loss stayed with him for a few nights.

Not forever. Not in a dramatic way. But long enough to hurt.

That is how he is talking now as he gets ready for UFC Perth, where he meets Carlos Prates in the main event. Della Maddalena said the defeat to Makhachev bothered him after the fight and sat in his head for a bit, which is easy to understand when a title loss comes with that much pressure around it. He had the belt. He lost it. And then he had to go home with that version of the story instead of the one he wanted.

He also made it clear that he is past that stage now. The first few nights were rough, but he did not stay stuck there. He has moved on to the next job, and that next job is a dangerous one. Carlos Prates is coming in with momentum, confidence and the kind of striking that can make any welterweight nervous if the fight gets loose in the wrong places.

What comes through in his words is not panic or self-pity. It sounds more like a fighter being honest about how these losses really feel when the arena goes quiet and the belt is gone. A lot of athletes try to act like they reset instantly. Della Maddalena did not sell it that way. He admitted it lingered. Then he admitted he had to get over it because the division does not wait around for anyone to finish feeling sorry for himself.

Della Maddalena moves on

That makes this Perth fight feel a little sharper. He is not coming in as the champion anymore. He is coming in as a former champion trying to show that the top of the division is still where he belongs. There is a difference. When you fight with the belt, the goal is to protect your place. When you fight after losing it, the goal is to prove the place was not temporary.

Prates is the kind of opponent who can make that difficult very quickly. He is not a soft rebound fight. He is not there to help Della Maddalena rebuild his mood in front of a home crowd. He is there to take the spot for himself. That is why this matchup works. One man is trying to show that a title loss did not break his path. The other is trying to turn one huge win into the biggest leap of his career.

• Della Maddalena says the Makhachev loss stayed with him for a few nights.
• He says he has moved on from it.
• Now he faces Carlos Prates in the UFC Perth main event.
• The fight puts him right back under pressure in front of a home crowd.

For Della Maddalena, that crowd matters too. Perth is not neutral ground. It is the kind of setting where people will expect him to look like himself again. Clean boxing. Good reads. Calm under fire. A former champion who still feels like a top welterweight the second the fight starts. If he wins, the loss to Makhachev starts to look like one hard chapter instead of a bigger slide. If he loses, the questions get much heavier.

That is the position he is in now. The belt is gone. The next fight is here. The old loss still sits close enough that he can talk about it honestly, but not so close that it owns him. That is usually where the next real chapter begins for a fighter. Not when the pain disappears, but when the work becomes louder than the pain.