‘Go where this is legal’: How Paul Gallen’s State of Origin punch changed the UFC forever

Jack Della cannot say, for sure, how often he’s sat on the wrong side of a white stripe.

“But the sin bin?” Australia’s new UFC star grins, “yeah, I’ve spent some time there”.

Some?

“More like a f***ing lot,” the fighter’s older brother laughs.

And Josh Della Maddalena, he should know.

UFC 322: Della Maddalena vs Makhachev | SUN 16 NOV 2PM AEDT | Australia’s own Jack Della Maddalena puts his welterweight title on the line against Pound for Pound great and former lightweight champ Islam Makhachev in a blockbuster night of fights, live from New York City. | Order Now with Main Event on Kayo Sports.

Especially given how often his own backside was plonked right there alongside a sibling who, while two years his junior, was both tough and talented enough to wear No.9 in the same Aquinas College First XV.

“So Jack, he could really play,” Josh continues of a fella whose life started out as a schoolboy rugby star.

Only problem?

“Like me,” big brother grins, “he was just too aggressive.

“If somebody stepped on my foot playing rugby, I’d punch ‘em out.

“And Jack was the same.

“It’s why eventually, it wasn’t uncommon to see both of us there together on the sidelines, side by side in the bin.”

Which is a story worth retelling this week.

Especially here in New York.

Where inside no less than Madison Square Garden this Sunday, JDM looks to defend his new UFC welterweight crown.

And against no less than hyped Dagestani bogeyman Islam Makhachev.

The same Makhachev, you likely know, who hails from those infamous Caucasus Mountains.

Way up where young men are created by lifting rocks, wrasslin’ bears and swimming in rivers so wild, Khabib Nurmagomedov has openly talked of losing six, maybe seven childhood friends to the practice.

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So they say.

With Nurmagomedov, himself a UFC phenom, now overseeing that growing hoard of warriors who roll, one after another, down from those mountains like some bearded Army of the Dead.

And leading the charge, undeniably, is Makhachev.

That hyped former UFC lightweight king who is now moving up to chase further greatness.

And as a $1.40 TAB favourite.

Which again, says a lot about not only who he is, but where he’s from.

With those Caucasus Mountains of Dagestan widely considered something akin to the UFC’s greatest breeding ground.

At which point though, we want to offer up an unlikely challenger.

One sports fan here in New York City might call the penalty box.

But Down Under?

It’s the Sin Bin.

Or more simply, ‘The Bin’.

Rugby league, rugby union, whatever, doesn’t matter; if you want to find a fella capable of winning UFC gold, go sit among those who, like Della, exist on that wrong side of a white stripe.

Which again, isn’t wrasslin’ bears.

But it may just be the next best thing.

Which is why on the eve of this Sunday’s UFC 322 blockbuster, Fox Sports Australia asks just how good Australia’s rugby codes are as a breeding ground for MMA.

HOW MANY UFC STARS STARTED OUT PLAYING FOOTY?

When it comes to Australia’s growing band of Octagon fighters, almost every one of them started out in rugby league or union.

In fact, when it comes to the nation’s five greatest UFC stars – Alexander Volkanovski, Rob Whittaker, Mark Hunt, Tai Tuivasa, and now Della – every single one grew up not only playing footy in winter, but starring.

Which isn’t us trying to compare this to, say, US college wrestling.

But consider the list of Trans Tasman fighters raised in rugby league also includes the likes of Tyson Pedro, Tom Nolan, Kyle Noke, Justin Tafa, Jamie Te Huna and Shannon Ross, while Jack Jenkins and Jamie Mullarkey are both union products.

Elsewhere, UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall also boasts a rugby league background in Wigan, while South Africa’s Dricus du Plessis was gifted enough at rugby to play Currie Cup U19s.

Across the ditch in New Zealand, other footy products include the likes of UFC flyweight Kai Kara France, popular lightweight Brad Ridell and Aucklander Carlos Ulberg, now in line to fight for the UFC light heavyweight crown.

Importantly, almost all of them spent more than a little time in the bin, too.

“Although mostly for me, it was just backing up the boys,” JDM grins.

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“I dunno,” the champ grins, sheepishly. “But in a rugby ruck, mate, there’s a lot of bodies in and around there. It means all sorts of stuff can happen.”

Years earlier, it was a similar story for Hunt.

That legendary UFC heavyweight who started out playing for Mangere East Hawks -- and was being touted as a Junior New Zealand representative -- when his love of violence ended things.

“Because a kid and his criminal record,’’ Hunt once told me, “isn’t what they wanted representing New Zealand.”

So across to MMA he went.

Yet so promising was The Super Samoan as a leaguie, former junior team-mates like Nigel Vagana, who would go on to play 37 Tests himself, insist the big fella could’ve gone all the way.

“We represented Auckland together and I can still see him charging forward with that big Samoan sidestep,” Vagana laughs. “But there was just a little too much UFC on the field.

“It’s why everyone was s*** scared of him … even us team-mates.”

HOW DID GAL’S ORIGIN PUNCH SHAKE UP THE UFC?

Well, the school of thought goes that when Gal thumped Nate Myles during the 2013 Origin series, it brought a punch ban to rugby league that effectively drove the wildest young men from the sport.

Consider, say, that Ulberg effectively took up MMA after being sent off in what would prove his last ever game of league. While Tafa also lauds the punch ban for helping to grow MMA.

Once a promising forward within Melbourne Storm system, Tafa credits the rise and rise of Australian MMA – at least, in part -- to “that Origin game when they stopped the biff”.

“You look at the NRL now, there’s no good scraps,” the Brisbane slugger grins. “Props look like wingers and, for many people, the game has lost touch with what it used to be.

“I mean, nobody wants a game where you hit someone and sit out six weeks. That’s why so many guys switch, I reckon.”

Then after a pause, Tafa cackles: “If that ban doesn’t come in, man, so many UFC guys would still be punching on in footy.”

Certainly for the Maddalena boys, the story is similar.

“Because I definitely got binned a bit,” the UFC welterweight champ laughs. “And after a while, you just start thinking ‘why don’t I just go into a sport where this is all legal?’.”

Call it a continuing crossover that also includes Australia’s first UFC champion.

Long before he was lighting up the UFC middleweight division, Whittaker was so promising as a promising Menai Roosters centre he got selected into a Cronulla Sharks development squad.

Tuivasa, meanwhile, was signed to the Roosters representative system and according to famed NRL scout Peter O’Sullivan, who picked him up aged 16, and at 140kg, could have definitely played first grade.

“Oh, Tai Tuivasa could’ve played NRL,” O’Sullivan has said previously. “And how long he stayed in first grade, that would’ve been entirely in his hands too.

“Tai really was a high end talent.

“Had size, obviously. But as a prop, he also boasted a skill set like few others.

“Incredibly athletic too.

“I can still see him running 70m for a try at the Sydney Football Stadium like it were yesterday.”

Elsewhere, rising UFC lightweight Tom Nolan was also such a prospect in north Queensland that by age 15 -- and after helping his Valleys team to a premiership – the youngster’s MMA coaches cornered him for a chat he hadn’t even thought about.

“They said ‘look, you’re fairly good at both sports, and you’re about to get to that point where you have to choose’,” Nolan recalls of a time when he still had just two amateur fights.

“Then (over the summer) I had my third MMA fight, went to war with the guy and won. And standing there in the cage afterwards, both of us all banged up, I decided ‘yeah, this is what I’m doing’.”

IS FOOTY A STRONG BASE FOR MMA?

Certainly it has the backing of JDM, who was playing rugby by eight, starring in his teens, and describes footy as something akin to the great Australian UFC secret.

“I actually think it’s our greatest secret down here,” the champ grins. “That we grow up tackling people”.

Asked about the rugby codes being a strong base for MMA, and the champ continues: “Defending in footy, it’s just like wrestling.

“You only have to look at a double league and a rugby tackle, they’re extremely similar.

“And from a young age, I was spending three days a week, and sometimes more, running around doing exactly that. Throw in the physicality and I definitely think you’ve got a solid base for MMA.”

Maddalena’s head coach Ben Vickers agrees, stating there are “definite similarities” between the sports, while adding it helps to recruit youngsters who already have “a comfort with physicality”.

Elsewhere, Volkanovski’s head coach Joe Lopez also makes an interesting point, noting the increased use of MMA coaches in all rugby codes – particularly the NRL – has likely played a role in sending better athletes back to the sport.

More than simply changing the way the nation’s best leaguies defend, the now widespread use of wrestling coaches has filtered all the way down into junior ranks, with many youngsters being taught how to effectively grapple and wrestle while still in primary school.

“When I played footy,” Lopez grins, “the only wrestling advice defenders got was ‘grab their f***ing ankles’. That was it.”

Now though, the NRL is awash with so many techniques that, even when it comes to only illegal moves, we’ve seen manoeuvres like The Chicken Wing, Rolling Pin, Grapple, Cannonball, The Ripper, even a Seatbelt.

Eat your heart out Dagestan.

Lopez added that one of the reasons footballers swap to MMA is the individual nature of the sport, allowing those with a real drive to chase success without any of it being reliant on a group of team-mates.

“And playing footy helps because of the physicality,” he says. “You find kids who’ve stuck at the game into their late teens and early 20s, they’re the ones who just love contact.”

IS FOOTY A BETTER BASE THAN, SAY, TAEKWONDO?

Yes. At least according to Jack Della’s older brother Josh.

Apart from being the longtime trainer partner and corner for Australia’s newest UFC champion, Josh also boasts his own successful MMA career and insists our rugby codes are a stronger base for MMA than even taekwondo or “some sh***y karate”.

“Even someone who has been at the elite taekwondo level 10 years,” he says. “You give me a rugby player -- same age, same size – who has been playing elite footy for the same time, I’m picking him to be the MMA fighter.”

Pushed on the advantages, Josh continues: “It’s not something I’d ever really thought about before but, yeah, it’s a good argument.

“Because when it comes to, say, the wrestle, rugby guys are used to the contact, the body positioning … footy players have been in 100 wrestling matches without ever really knowing it.

“Every time there is a ruck, or you’re tackling someone, holding them down, they’re wrestling matches.

“And to win them, you need to have the better body position. If not, you’re in trouble.

“Same as if you don’t commit to a tackle just right, you get bounced.

“Every defensive skill you learn translates to MMA fighting.”

Elsewhere, having two reigning UFC champions in Della and Volk suggests a childhood spent tackling certainly doesn’t hurt your pathway to being able to compete on an Octagon canvas.

Equally as telling however, is that when rugby players do walk inside an MMA gym – and often for what they initially believe will only be some extra defensive tips, or a few summer sweat sessions -- we’ve now got some of the world’s best coaches assisting them.

Think men like Vickers, Alex Prates, Joe Lopez and Craig Jones, the latter who doubles as one of the planet’s strongest Brazilian Jiu Jitsu exponents.

All of which counters Makhachev, not so long ago, grinning down a camera lens about how “brutha, Australia doesn’t have wrestling”.

“So those people saying we can’t wrestle,” Vickers shrugs, “what do you think we’re doing down here?

“Obviously, we’re a striking country first.

“But watch Jack fight Ramzan Emeev, who he went to the ground with, got up, and then knocked out. Belal Muhammad has also beaten a lot of US wrestlers, but he couldn’t beat Jack and could barely take him down.”

Over the years, the ground game of Volkaonvski has also become the stuff of legend.

Of course, the UFC featherweight champ also participated in the sport of wrestling growing up, but both he and JDM are certainly smashing all MMA cliches about Australians being unable to hang on the ground.

“Look, wrestling is a boring style, but an important style and one we embrace,” Vickers said. “One we’re very good at. I’d put Jack Della’s wrestling against anyone.”

THE CONTINUING CROSSOVER

Undeniably, the rugby codes are inextricably linked with the UFC.

While wrasslin’ coaches were a rarity in the early 1990s, rugby league is now littered with former UFC fighters and Brazilian Ji Jitsu black belts who are teaching the best ways to control a man on the ground, and therefore do that most important of jobs – win the ruck.

For proof, consider that Rob Whittaker wasn’t only employed as Panthers defensive coach during their premiership run, but is now doing the same with a revived Canterbury Bulldogs.

And assisting him? Fellow UFC middleweight Jacob Malkoun.

Elsewhere, Volkanovski has also worked on defence with St George Illawarra, while Kara-France is on staff at the Warriors and retired UFC fighter James Te Huna is employed out west at Penrith.

Whittaker’s head coach Alex Prates has also been an integral part of the staff during both South Sydney and Penrith premierships, now assists at Canterbury, and has also worked individually with NRL powerhouse Payne Haas.

It’s why Ulberg says the production line of footballers to the UFC won’t slow down.

“Playing rugby league, you need the physicality, the fast twitch muscles, and all those things transfer so well to MMA,” he said. “It’s why I really do think there will actually be a lot more guys like me continuing to come through.”

Given his obvious athletic talents, incredible cardio and unshakable toughness, we ask Della why he and fighters like him haven’t ended up representing the Wallabies, Kangaroos or All Blacks?

“I know for me personally, MMA is just a deeper love,” he says. “Dunno why. I just love the art of it, the competition.

“And because of all that, I’ve immersed myself in learning this game.

“It’s so primal, competing one on one. I think it’s the most heightened form of competition.”

Of course, there also remains one obvious caveat for those making the switch.

“The footballers coming across,” Lopez grins, “have to be OK with getting punched in the head”.

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