Quillan Salkilld “Singing and Dancing” Ahead of Debut at UFC 312

Sydney, Australia — Quillan Salkilld has been “singing and dancing all week,” he said on Wednesday, days out from his octagon debut at UFC 312.

The lightweight newcomer is paired up with Anshul Jubli at the event in Sydney, Australia, and admitted at his first UFC media day that it was hard to sleep while picturing his debut.

While Perth’s Salkilld might spend those sleepless nights studying his opponent, he actually caught Jubli’s own UFC debut live.

“I watched his debut, because I was watching that event, I think it was Volk [Alexander Volkanovski] and Islam [Makhachev] 2, that card. I was watching live. And yeah, I always thought that might be a name I come up against anyway when I first got it. It kind of came to fruition.”

When it was mentioned that Jubli had recently announced his knees were back to full strength, Salkilld expressed surprise. “I didn’t even know that. Might have to throw some oblique kicks now,” he quipped. As for what he expects the headlines about him to read after UFC 312, “Salkilld flies back to Perth with $50,000 extra,” he suggested.

The bonus would be nice, of course. So would some extra attention from the promotion, but they seem to be favoring the Colby Thicknesse vs. Aleksandre Topuria match. No surprise, since one half of it features the debut of UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria’s brother.

Being overlooked doesn’t bother Quillan Salkilld, whose teammate Cody Haddon was Topuria’s original opponent.

“Not at all man. That’s totally understood, obviously the Topuria name is very big in the MMA scene. Happy for Colby, more just gutted for my teammate Cody, [who] had to withdraw due to injury. I like to say, because they look the same, I think the Topuria team doesn’t even know there’s been an opponent swap, because they look like twins sometimes. Cody and Colby, even the name, I think that’s quite funny.”

Watch the full UFC 312 media day appearance by Quillan Salkilld above.