Mike Malott walked out of Rogers Place on Saturday night $100,000 richer, one of four fighters handed Performance of the Night bonuses after UFC Fight Night 291 in Edmonton, Alberta, produced finish after finish. Marc-Andre Barriault, Mandel Nallo and Joel Faglier collected the other three. The UFC skipped Fight of the Night entirely, and with 12 stoppages in 13 bouts (a record-tying number, according to MMA Junkie), the eight remaining finishers each took home $25,000. Only Jasudavicius vs. Blanchfield went the distance. As Alexander K Lee pointed out on X, those six-figure checks come to $141,575 in Canadian money, which feels about right for a night this generous to the home crowd.
Malott’s knockout of Joaquin Buckley will live in highlight reels for a while. He threw a few head kicks early that Buckley blocked without much trouble, and then, midway through the second round, he timed Buckley stepping into the pocket and met him with a right knee to the jaw. Cageside Press described it as a knee that may have started life as a kick. Whatever it began as, it landed flush. Buckley’s mouthpiece sailed across the cage, he fell face first, and Malott landed one more shot before the referee got there, though the fight was over the instant that knee connected.
The win moves Malott to 15-2-1 overall and 8-1 in the UFC. He came in ranked No. 11 at welterweight against the No. 8 Buckley (now 21-9, 11-7 UFC), and multiple outlets expect him to crack the top 10 and draw a ranked opponent next. Heavy called it the biggest win of his career, and that’s hard to argue with.
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Barriault, 36, had a rougher road. Kyle Daukaus took him down early and controlled the opening minutes, but once the two got tied up against the fence, Barriault started landing elbows to the side of the head and the fight turned. He finished it with punches at 4:28 of Round 1, improving to 18-11 (7-10 UFC).
Nallo, the ex-Bellator fighter who trains out of TriStar, earned his first UFC win by picking apart veteran Nate Landwehr with kicks to the legs and strikes to the body and head. The leg work set up an early knockdown in the second round, and the finish came quickly after. He’s now 15-4, 1-1 in the UFC.
Faglier’s bonus came from the most dramatic turnaround of the night. Fellow heavyweight newcomer Javad Mahjoub dropped him twice in the first round and took a 10-8 score from two judges, but he emptied the tank doing it and barely made it to his stool. Faglier and his corner saw it, and the second-round TKO that followed looked almost routine. He stays unbeaten at 7-0.
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The $25,000 finish bonuses went to Cristian Perez (a 27-second knockout of Kyle Nelson in his debut), Timmy Cuamba, Tanner Boser, Nick Galanti, Katlyn Cerminara, Steven Koslow, Chelsea Chandler and SuYoung You. Cerminara’s stood out. She was back after 31 months away, during which she became a mother, and she stopped Mackenzie Stiller with 14 seconds left in the first round for her first win since May 2022. Per Aaron Bronsteter, the event drew 16,903 fans and a $2,206,902 gate.
My take: Malott has earned the ranked opponent everyone is predicting, and I’d like to see him get a real stylistic test before the hype outruns him. But my favorite story of the night belongs to Faglier’s corner, who looked at a man who had just been knocked down twice and told him, in effect, the other guy is finished, go take it.
