Jack Della Maddalena’s coach shoots down injury rumors after UFC 322 loss: ‘There are no excuses here’

Ben Vickers, the head coach of Jack Della Maddalena, shot down any injury rumors after UFC 322.

Della Maddalena suffered a lopsided decision loss to Islam Makhachev at UFC 322 to lose his welterweight title. Makhachev was able to take Della Maddalena down at will to get the win.

During the fight, Della Maddalena looked to be in pain multiple times, but Vickers is shooting down any injury rumors.

“When you commit to having a fight, it doesn’t matter what the f**k is wrong with you, if anything was,” Vickers said to Submission Radio on Thursday. “We’re not going to confirm or deny anything. When we decided to step in the cage, we believed Jack could win that fight. That’s all I’m going to say. There are no excuses here. We didn’t do enough on the day to get the job done, and that is it.”

Following the loss, Jack Della Maddalena issued a statement saying he will move forward and learn from the result.

Jack Della Maddalena’s coach reveals game plan for Islam Makhachev

At UFC 322, Makhachev was able to use his wrestling to dominate Della Maddalena. But when they were on their feet, Makhachev was able to land heavy calf kicks, which hindered the champ.

Ben Vickers admitted that the plan was to be further away at range, but Makhachev did a good job implementing his game plan.

“The game plan was to be further away than that range, probably, and then switching stances a lot,” Vickers added. “I think when the lead leg gets compromised early, it kind of like hurt the game plan a little bit in terms of stance switching and stuff like that. I commend them on their game planning against us. They clearly studied a lot of tape. They had an answer for the head-hands defense with the head kicks and stuff like that.”

With the loss at UFC 322, Jack Della Maddalena fell to 18-3 as a pro and is now 8-1 in the UFC.