Josh Emmett is set to headline Saturday’s UFC Vegas 114 against surging contender Kevin Vallejos, and he knows he needs to get his hand raised.
The featherweight knockout artist enters the bout on a two-fight skid, and 1-4 in his past five – with the lone win coming via vicious knockout of Bryce Mitchell. Now that he’s facing another rising featherweight, Emmett knows how pivotal this matchup is for him.
“Yeah, I don’t feel like my back’s against the wall, but feel like it’s a must-win,” Emmett told
MMA Fighting. “I need to go in there and just win. Everything that I’m trying to chase and achieve, I have to win. It’s like winning is everything to me, and I put in hundreds and hundreds of hours for this potentially 25 minute fight.
“So I need to go out there and just be me and just be relaxed and and and fight this guy the way that, the way that I fight, and he’s not going to show me anything I haven’t seen.”
In his most recent bout, Emmett was submitted in just 98 seconds by Youssef Zalal at UFC 320 this past October. Prior to that, Emmett lost a decision to Lerone Murphy in the main event of UFC Vegas 105 in April 2025. The other two losses during the stretch were to former interim champ Yair Rodriguez and current lightweight champ Ilia Topuria.
Emmett knows he has a massive experience advantage in the fight – not just with opposition, but experiencing all of the highs and lows the sport has to offer.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and some of the most important fights of my life, I was probably at my worst… I just wasn’t at my best, I’ll say that,” Emmett said. “So that’s why I took 2024 off, the entire year off to get healthy and get back to feeling great, which I did. And then I came in, I fought Lerone Murphy, we fought a main event, five-round fight. It just and that didn’t go my way. And look, he’s fighting for the number one contender spot the week after me. So it’s like, I know I can compete with any of these guys. I know I can beat any of these guys. I know I can.
“And then the last fight, I just got caught. I got caught, that’s what happens in this sport sometimes. I felt phenomenal, the best I ever felt, and it was over like that. I didn’t even feel like I fought, you know? It’s so frustrating to me. But yeah, what can you do? That’s life. So I’ve got to just get up, work on not letting that happen again, and figure out what I have to do to get better, and that everything went perfect [and] according to plan this time.
“There’s highs and lows in this sport, but you have to have a short memory, and you have to just move on, because I’m not going to sit there and dwell on the past. It’s going to do you no good, especially when you’re trying to move forward and achieve greatness.”
Vallejos was a hyped talent coming off of Dana White’s Contender Series – losing to Jean Silva in one of the best DWCS fights ever in his first appearance, and then punching his UFC ticket with a quick knockout a year later. The Argentinian standout is 3-0 in the UFC with a pair of stoppages, including a bonus-winning knockout of Giga Chikadze this past December at UFC Vegas 112.
Emmett knows why he’s the guy standing across from Vallejos and expects to get the fight he wants.
“He’s done well,” Emmett explained. “He’s tough. Honestly, I did not know who he was when my manager called me and said they wanted me to fight him, but then they mentioned the Giga knockout. I saw the highlight of that, and then obviously, since I was going to fight him, then we started watching film and stuff like that on him, and he’s good.
“Everyone in the UFC is good and they’re trying to push him, and it doesn’t matter. I like the matchup though, I’ll tell you that. He’s going to come forward and he’s going to strike with me. So I can’t wait for Saturday.”
