London, England — Jake Hadley picked up his second win in a row this past weekend at UFC 286, defeating reputable Canadian Malcolm Gordon.
Now three fights into his short UFC tenure, you notice that “White Kong” is feeling more comfortable fighting under the promotional banner. On the lead up to his fight with Gordon, a lot of the talk drifted towards his rivalry with Muhammed Mokaev, but Hadley didn’t let that get in the way of his performance.
Malcolm Gordon came into the fight 3.5lbs over the flyweight limit putting this fight into jeopardy, but fortunately, it went ahead with Gordon forfeiting 30% of his purse. Talking about his opponent coming in overweight, Hadley said following the fight that “3.5lbs is a lot especially at flyweight level, percentage wise it’s a lot more than at another weight, he’s missed it by quite a lot.
“And yeah, I took 30% of his purse but it’s not a lot when you’ve missed the weight by that much. I do think it was a strategic move, the last two opponents have missed weight by quite a bit. I think it was strategic because he wants to come in the bigger man and try and hold me on the floor.”
Hadley scored a first round TKO, debilitating Gordon with some beautiful body shots on the way to a ground-and-pound finish. This stood as the 26-year-olds first UFC fight in the UK despite there having been two UK events last year.
When talking about the home crowd during the post fight scrum, Hadley said “I felt like a modern day gladiator coming out and all the people are there thinking in my mind they’re all there for me. I felt like a modern day gladiator, blood thirsty, I was blood thirsty. I don’t want to be too graphic but fighting gets me going.”
Watch the full UFC 286 post-fight press conference appearance by Jake Hadley above.
