UFC Vancouver went down on Saturday night and while the prelims were fire the main card was a bit of an odd duck, defined more by controversies involving the referees than highlights from the fights.
One
match that saw controversy was the welterweight co-main between great Canadian hope Mike Malott and Kevin Holland. That fight saw Malott ding Holland in the cup twice, with the second strike stopping the action for the full five minutes as “Trailblazer” struggled to recover.
A point deduction for the illegal blow would have resulted in their fight being a 28-28 draw, but of course that didn’t happen. So Malott walked away from B.C. with his third win in a row. “Proper” discussed the improper blows during the UFC Vancouver post-fight press conference.
“Honestly, I was just focused on the fight,” Malott said of the extended fight pause when it seemed the fight might be waved off due to his groin strike. “Keep moving around a little bit, don’t get too cold, don’t get too hyped and frustrated over stuff you can’t control.”
The Canadian even suggested that he didn’t think the blow actually caught Holland in the cup.
“I know we both threw kicks at the same time, and one of mine went low first,” he said. “The second one, my knee hit him in the hip. My shin, I think, brushed his cup, but I have to watch it back. Maybe I’m crazy, but my knee hit him in the hip, right above the belt line. He’s just so tall, the dude is all limbs. His hips are so high, it’s hard to get that knee up. I’m sure my shin did hit him in the groin.”
“I bet it hurt. I don’t think he was being dramatic. I’m sure it was bugging him. Yeah, a bit of an odd one. But that happened. You can’t control it, and there are 10 straight minutes, so we have to get into it, reset and focus.”
That reset was hard when Holland was still reacting to the blow when the fight restarted.
“He’s a chaotic guy,” Malott said. “Is he doing that cuz he wants me to rush in and do something stupid and he’s going to rip a right hand or something and try to knock me out? Is he playing possum? Can he just not continue? I don’t know. Maybe I should have gotten on him a little more, but whatever, man. Hindsight’s 20/20.”
As for what’s next? Another show in Canada, hopefully.
“I would rather be a co-main event in Canada than just a dude on some American show,” he said. “You only get so many of these in life and each one of these feels like such a big celebration for all the Canadian fans and fighters. It’s almost like being a kid and going back to camp and seeing the guys from last year.”
“I’ll fight where the UFC tells me to fight but I would always prefer to fight in Canada.”
