Anaheim, CA — “The Welsh Gangster” Oban Elliott picked up a decision win over Val Woodburn in his promotional debut at UFC 298, in a fight that saw him land a crushing head kick, only to have to fend off a resurgent Woodburn immediately after.
Welterweight Elliott (10-2) was glowing afterwards, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press.
“How can I put this into words, what I’ve just gone and done? I can’t, I’ll be honest. UFC debut on a Pay-Per-View, I’ve had the most mad fight week. I’m literally living the dream. You’re looking at someone living the full-on dream, that’s how I’m feeling.”
That “mad fight week” involved appearing on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, getting a video message from Chael Sonnen, meeting Michael Bisping, sharing some “secret juice” with Paulo Costa, and seeing Wanderlei Silva while walking out to the cage. “And then I’ve got to win my UFC debut against a really good fighter. Insane.”
With his UFC debut behind him, Elliott added that he’s going to be “living it up in America for the next week. I’m staying out here.”
“Hopefully I’ll go and wrestle someone on Monday Night RAW on Monday. I’d like to do that, 100%. We’ll see, we’ll see what happens from here, but I’m going to enjoy tonight,” Elliott, a noted pro wrestling buff, exclaimed. “Take one thing at a time. I’m not sitting here and going to go planning future fights. I’m going to take in what I’ve just done, which is phenomenal. Scumbag like me coming out to California and winning a debut like that, unbelievable. I am over the moon.”
While he wasn’t ready to talk about his next fight, Oban Elliott did suggest one opponent. “Who do I want next? Roman Reigns on Monday Night RAW.”
Elliott added that he didn’t have his post-fight speech planned, because he likely would have forgotten it. Instead, the Rick Flair quotes just popped in there.
“With a tear in my eye, this is the greatest moment of my life,” Elliott said in his post-fight speech, a reference to Flair’s 1992 Royal Rumble victory promo, then finished with “to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man,” another Flair classic.
“Honestly I’ve watched that much wrestling, and the smack talk with the wrestlers, like most of my vocabulary and my brain is just quotes from different wrestlers,” Elliott later explained. “It just popped into my head.”
With WWE and the UFC now housed together under TKO Group Holdings, maybe Elliott can get his shot on RAW after all.
Watch the full UFC 298 post-fight press conference with Oban Elliott above.
