Mike Malott landed one clean knee to the jaw of Joaquin Buckley in Round 2 at Rogers Place on Saturday, and the welterweight booking board changed in that moment. Buckley had shared a cage with some of the best names the division has produced, and nobody had put him out at 170 pounds until then. Malott is now 15-2-1 overall and 8-1 in the UFC, with five straight wins. He also has something most fighters coming off a career-best win don’t get, which is a date. UFC 336 goes down Jan. 30 in Toronto, in his home province of Ontario, and Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie made the case that Malott is in line for the most prominent non-title fight on that card.
So the question is who stands across from him, and the easy answer is the wrong one.
Malott: Wait for Brady vs. Bonfim
The name floating around online after the fight was Jack Della Maddalena (18-4, 8-2 UFC). I get the appeal. He’s a former champion, he’d likely be favored, and he needs a rebound badly after losing to Islam Makhachev and Carlos Prates in dominant fashion. On paper that’s a ranked, name-value fight for a Toronto crowd.
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Bohn spotted the problem, though. Burns was on a skid when Malott beat him, and so was Buckley. Della Maddalena would make it three losing-streak opponents in a row. At some point you have to beat somebody who’s climbing, and the welterweight division is about to hand Malott exactly that guy.
Sean Brady (20-1, 7-1 UFC) and Gabriel Bonfim (19-2, 9-2 UFC) headline UFC Fight Night 293 on Nov. 7. MMA Mania has Brady at No. 5 and Bonfim at No. 6, and its writer expects Malott to slide into No. 7 when the rankings update. That’s about as tidy a ladder as matchmaking ever gets: 5 and 6 fight, 7 gets the winner. Brady also already owns a decision over Buckley from this same losing skid, so there’s a built-in comparison for fans who like that sort of thing (I don’t put much stock in it, but promoters do).
The turnaround is roughly 12 weeks from Nov. 7 to Jan. 30. That’s tight for a five-round main event winner, but it’s workable if the Nov. 7 fight doesn’t turn into a 25-minute grind. If the winner comes out banged up, fine, give Malott Della Maddalena as the fallback and nobody gets hurt. Malott said after the fight that he isn’t picky about the opponent as long as he’s on UFC 336, which tells you the UFC has flexibility. Use it on the fight that actually moves him toward the top five instead of sideways.
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My pick: Malott vs. the Brady/Bonfim winner, Jan. 30 in Toronto.
Buckley: The Medic vs. Holland Loser
This one stings. Less than two years ago, Buckley (22-9, 11-7 UFC) was coming off a main event win over Colby Covington and riding six straight wins after dropping to welterweight. Now he’s on a three-fight skid. The Brady and Kamaru Usman losses went to decisions, which you can live with. Getting stopped for the first time at 170 is a different kind of loss, and it came after he’d finally settled into a new camp at Fortis MMA in Dallas.
He’s 32, so the door is open. But Bohn’s read, that his ceiling looks more defined than ever, is fair, and he probably has to accept someone lower in the rankings or outside them. The pairing Bohn floated is the loser of Uros Medic (14-3, 8-3 UFC) vs. Kevin Holland (29-15, 16-12 UFC) at UFC 334 on Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden. I like it a lot. Both guys come to fight, both would be coming off a loss, and the calendar gives Buckley real time to recover from a heavy knockout before camp starts. Please give him that time. Rushing a man back from his first stoppage at a weight class is how a skid becomes a release.
Jasudavicius: Zhang Weili, and Nobody Else
Jasmine Jasudavicius beat Erin Blanchfield by unanimous decision in the co-main, which is the best result of her career and a loud one at flyweight, my favorite division in the sport. The title picture is crowded at the very top, though. Natalia Silva is the newly crowned champion, and MMA Mania figures Alexa Grasso is first in line for Silva’s first defense.
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That leaves two realistic options. One is a rematch with Manon Fiorot, who beat Jasudavicius last year. The trouble is that Fiorot is coming off a loss to Grasso, so running that back would mean Jasudavicius fighting someone with less momentum than she has. That’s backwards.
The other is Zhang Weili, currently ranked No. 5 at flyweight. This is the fight. A win over Blanchfield followed by a win over Zhang would leave the UFC with no honest argument against a title shot, whoever wins Silva vs. Grasso. A loss tells you she’s one more step away, and that’s useful information too. Fiorot can wait. Book Zhang, and put Jasudavicius in a spot where the winner is next in line for Silva’s belt.