Mike
Malott has put himself in position to make some real noise in
the
Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight division.
The 31-year-old Canadian will look to accelerate his push at 170
pounds when he tests his mettle against
Adam Fugitt
in a featured
UFC
289 attraction on Saturday at Rogers Arena in Vancouver,
British Columbia. Malott enters the Octagon on the heels of five
straight victories, all of them finishes. He last appeared at UFC
Fight Night 220, where he dismissed
Yohan
Lainesse with an arm-triangle choke in the first round of their
Feb. 25 pairing.
As the surging Malott approaches his high-stakes battle with
Fugitt, here are five things you might not know about him:
1. He followed traditional routes.
Malott started his formal mixed martial arts training at House of
Champions in Stoney Creek, Ontario, where he developed under the
tutelage of decorated muay thai practitioner Alin Halmagean. He
made his professional MMA debut at the age of 19 when he needed all
of 32 seconds to submit
James
Saunders with an armbar at an Extreme Cage Combat show on April
16, 2011. The event also featured early iterations of future UFC
competitors
Gavin
Tucker and
Chris
Kelades.
2. Championship gold did not result in his growing
complacent.
“Proper” laid claim to the Xcessive Force Fighting Championship
lightweight title with a 36-second knockout of
Craig
Shintani in the XFFC 13 main event in February 2017. He then
took an extended sabbatical from MMA competition—he went 1,414 days
between fights—to round out his skills, with a particular focus on
his grappling. Since his return as a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black
belt, Malott has gone 4-0 with three submissions.
3. Efficiency has been a hallmark.
The Burlington, Ontario, native punched his ticket to the UFC on
Dana White’s Contender Series, as he dispatched
Shimon
Smotritsky with a guillotine choke 39 seconds into their Week 6
pairing on Oct. 5, 2021. It was the fourth sub-minute finish of
Malott’s career and swung open the Octagon doors for him.
4. Academics were a focus.
Malott holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from Dalhousie
University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Founded in 1818, the school has
produced a number of notable alumni, including “Anne of Green
Gables” author Lucy Maud Montgomery and Kathryn Sullivan—the first
American woman to walk in space.
5. Toughness runs in his blood.
Malott’s younger brother is a professional hockey prospect with the
Manitoba Moose, an AHL affiliate of the Winnipeg Jets.
Jeff Malott,
26, has scored 60 goals in parts of three seasons with the Moose.
He made his NHL debut in 2021-22, playing in one game for the Jets.