Mike Malott happy to headline a UFC in Canada, but there is no 'Rush' to replace Georges St-Pierre
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During a three-year stretch from 2010-13, starting at UFC 83 when he took back the welterweight title from Matt Hughes, Canada’s great champion Georges St-Pierre fought four consecutive fights in his home country. GSP effectively turned Canada into the hottest market in MMA during that time. At UFC 129, over 55,000 people filled the Rogers Centre to see St-Pierre defend his title against Jake Shields, which smashed the attendance record.
The love Canada showed to GSP was so dedicated, so utterly rabid that Dana White famously quipped that he’d take the UFC to the “Great North” every weekend if he could.
Yet since GSP retired in 2017 there’s been an organic, if un-Rushed search for the one to carry Canada’s hearts into the cage. Rory MacDonald, GSP’s young apprentice at Tri-Star in Montreal, had a good career, but he never snapped up the mantle. T.J. Grant disappeared from fighting at the moment he arrived to a title shot, and was last known to be working the potash mines in Saskatchewan. Jasmine Jasudavicius has done a fine job representing the Maple Leaf, but she falls more into the Patrick Cote “friend zone” with her country.
Then there’s Mike Malott, who will fight for the sixth consecutive time in Canada on Saturday when he faces veteran Gilbert Burns in Winnipeg. The 34-year-old Malott is not a champion, and in fact he’s not even currently ranked, yet he’s 6-1 since coming off Contender Series in 2021, and the love he receives in Canada is warm enough for the UFC to keep booking him there. In fact, when he walked out for his fight with Kevin Holland in Vancouver in October, the reception he received was for that of a star.
On this occasion, for the first time ever, he will be in the main event. That means a light drop.
“Yeah, this is something I've been dreaming of since as a little kid,” he says. “I mean, even just getting to the UFC in general it feels big, right? Of course, my own goals and stuff, but I just can’t let it slip by without recognizing fighting in the UFC is something special, and to be the main event in the UFC is something even more special.”
Malott grew up in Ontario playing hockey alongside his brother, Jeff, who is currently a pro player with the Los Angeles Kings. Mike has joked that he ended up fighting because he “sucked at hockey,” yet it’s been a rewarding fall back. He began his journey all the way back in 2011 with his first pro fight in Halifax, and — after a hiatus in which he competed in Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournaments and coached at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California — broke into the UFC with a submission over Shimon Smotritsky on the Contender Series.
He's enjoyed every stop in between. He ran one-way traffic with Trevin Giles in Edmonton in late-2024. And when he knocked out “Chuck Buffalo” Charles Radtke at UFC 315 in Montreal last May, he couldn’t stop beaming.
It wasn’t only that all those months of training led to that result, it was that the Québécois got behind him with such passion.
“Man, I just love fighting in Canada,” he says. “My first two fights in the UFC were awesome. Getting a fight in Jacksonville was sweet. I loved that. And then fighting at the Apex was cool too, man. That was an awesome opportunity and great to get in there and get a win and cool to have had a UFC fight in the Apex, but nothing beats fighting in Canada for me. I love it.”
Now he draws a fight against the 39-year-old Burns, a one-time welterweight contender who has his back against the wall, looking to snap a four-fight skid. The old saying is that there’s nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose, and that’s where Burns is at in his career.
“To be honest, I don't have really any expectations for him,” Malott says of his counterpart. “You could make a case for, ‘Well, he might do this because he's in this spot, so he might fight more chaotic and desperate, might run at you. " Or maybe he might try to be more reserved? I don't know, man, only he knows that.
“But I know what I plan on doing. I know what I bring to the table, and I'm a lot more focused on that than I am on him. Just having my coaches and my training partners prepare me as best we possibly can. And I feel like we've prepared super well for this one. So I’ll just go in there and be free and be myself. And when I do that, like you said, I'm almost undefeated in the UFC.”
Almost. Malott’s lone loss in the UFC came against Neil Magny at UFC 297 in Toronto, a fight he was winning until he got caught with 15 seconds left in the fight. Had Malott survived the last few ticks of the clock, perhaps he’d have expedited into the kind of big spot he finds himself in come Saturday.
That is, headlining a Fight Night tailor-made for him.
“It kind of always feels that way, honestly, just because this is my journey, man,” he says. “I feel selfishly about fighting. Even when I was fighting in Jacksonville [at UFC 273], I’m like, yeah, sure, there's a main event for the fans [Alexander Volkanovski versus Chan Sung Jung], but for me, my fight's the main event. I'm focused on myself, so it's always felt like things are tailored for me because this is my journey.”
Maybe he’s not the next GSP, but as for headlining an arena show in Canada? In keeping the flames stoked up north? If any of the past five shows he’s been on in Canada have told us anything, it’s that Mike Malott will get a proper reception when the lights go down in Manitoba.
“What better time than now, being the main event and having an opportunity like this than to seize it?” he says. “That's what I’m here to do. I'm here to seize this opportunity.”
