Las Vegas — Middleweight Cam Rowston has already booked his UFC debut, doing so the same night he won his fight on Dana White’s Contender Series.
Rowston (12-3), who finished Brandon Holmes inside of a round on Tuesday, immediately called for a spot on the upcoming UFC Perth, and just as quickly got the go-ahead from UFC CEO and President Dana White himself.
“I really wanted to make my UFC debut on home soil in Australia. I’ve got friends in Sydney, family all over Australia, and I know they’re going to turn up for this one,” Rowston told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight.
Most fighters would hope for an explosive finish, perhaps with a Performance of the Night bonus, in their UFC debut. Rowston, however, when asked how he sees his fight in Perth going, said he’s actually looking for a split decision, and a bloody one at that.
“In my perfect world, I have a three-round war, blood everywhere, cuts, and I’m standing there with the referee, and he calls it and it’s a split decision, I get my hand raised,” stated Rowston. “It’s the best feeling ever. The anticipation of winning, it’s like, that’s what I live for.”
Rowston was wasting away life partying in his early 20s when MMA gave him something greater to aspire to. That happened around the time he started training with some other Australian talents who had flirted with the UFC.
“When I was about, I think it was 20, 21 years old, I started training with a guy who was in the UFC, Richie Walsh, and his mate Brendan O’Reilly,” Rowston recalled. The pair had appeared on The Ultimate Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia.
“A rising tide floats all boats, and I was just getting better and better. They were taking me down all the time, and then eventually they stopped taking me down so much. I started hitting them a little bit more, they were hitting me a little bit less.”
Eventually, Rowston got to thinking “‘f*ck, maybe I can do this.'” His training partners had similar thoughts. “Then they were saying stuff to be like ‘yeah you should give it a shot’ and I was like ‘f*ck, why not?'”
He did, and now Cam Rowston has arrived in the UFC.
Watch the full Dana White’s Contender Series 2025 Week 2 post-fight appearance by Cam Rowston above.
