Back in September, the UFC headed down under for a fight night from Perth, Australia. After an exciting lead up to a fight on home soil for Jonathan Micallef, the unthinkable happened on fight week. Just a couple days before the fight was supposed to take place, his opponent – Oban Elliott – pulled out with an injury. His chance to fight was gone, and it was a tough feeling for the Aussie.
“I’m honestly not one to get very emotional, but that definitely hit the emotion strings,” Micallef explained. “You dedicated your life and the people around you, my wife, my family, you know, they’re all around me and they see how much I dedicate to it. To not get the roses, to not get to go out and fight was difficult.”
Despite it being hard to not get to fight, Micallef did recognize that there are always benefits to things that happen. In this case, the work he put in would not go to waste.
“I’m still so young and it’s just another thing that I’m just adding to the experience. You know, every time we go out and do a rep it’s experience gained,” he said. “So I’ve got to take it with stride and see the benefits of it.”
He had some help with that mindset. During the fight week, after the cancellation, Micallef was lucky to speak to a former champion, who helped to put things into perspective.
“I actually did the interview with Dominick Cruz and the commentating board. Dominick Cruz was sort of like, ‘dude, you’ve got your health, you got all these things, use this as a holiday and get back to it,'” Micallef recalled. “I was like, you’re so right. From then it was like an immediate switch in my mind.”
After turning the page on the fight with Elliott, it came right back to him. As the UFC heads back to Australia this weekend, Micallef is yet again poised to fight the same opponent. After preparing for him for the better part of a year, Micallef is ready to put an exclamation point on the whole thing.
“Finally, we get to put an end on that and put a full stop in there. Hopefully with a 50 K bonus this time,” he said. “I’ve been telling everyone leading up to Perth, d’arce choke, and I’m going to stick with it, man. I’m going to catch him in a d’arce.”
You can see him looking to lock in that submission as part of the UFC 325 prelims. Those start at 5pm EST and can be seen on Paramount+.
