Athletes
Mike Malott Built His Life Around MMA
"Proper" Mike Malott Is Inching Toward His Goals As He Prepares For His Second UFC Fight At UFC Fight Night: Krylov vs Spann
One of the posts near the top of “Proper” Mike Malott’s Instagram page is a photo from his UFC debut against Mickey Gall. The two men are in the center of the Octagon, with Malott throwing a right kick, and the caption reads, “Sometimes I still can’t believe that I do this. 15-year-old me would be stoked. 45 days out.”
Those 45 days are almost up, as Malott makes his return to action this weekend against fellow Canadian Yohan Lainesse at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, seeking to build on his first-round stoppage win over Gall last spring.
“One of the most important things for me is keeping that kind of play mentality when it comes to MMA,” said the now 31-year-old UFC fighter who started envisioning this future for himself when he was still in his early teens. “This is something I’ve been working towards for 20 years — it’s something I’ve always wanted to do — but it started with me being a huge fan of the sport. As much as I’m an athlete and I compete in this sport, I’m a huge fan of what we do, and it still blows my mind that I get to do this.”
Malott isn’t the only professional athlete in his family.
His younger brother Jeff is a hockey player, having parlayed a solid career at Cornell into a contract with the Manitoba Moose, the American Hockey League affiliate of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets. A couple weeks before big brother made the walk to the Octagon for the first time, little brother made his first appearance for the Jets in a 6-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.
For kids like Jeff growing up in Canada, dreams of playing professional hockey are common, and there is a clear path one tends to travel in order to make those dreams a reality. For the elder Malott, the path from Waterdown, Ontario to the UFC Octagon wasn’t nearly as clear.
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“Going back, I must have sounded crazy to all my friends because I was like, ‘I’m going to be fighting in the UFC. I’m going to be a UFC champion one day,’” Malott said with a laugh. “I was a skinny kid at a private school, a prep school, with no experience. I trained at a local karate gym twice a week and I was kind of athletic.
“There was no reason for me to believe I was going to do this, but (Urijah) Faber talks about it a lot that having a little bit of delusion is good for people trying to explain chasing something big. I needed to have a little of that delusion in order to do this. ‘I’ll just do my best impression every day of someone who can fight in the UFC.’
“There wasn’t an MMA gym in my town. I trained at a karate gym. We did waist-up kickboxing and some jiu jitsu that was more like judo-style jiu jitsu, which, at the time, was amazing. I was 17 and I was like, ‘They could throw me in the UFC right now and I’d be fine,’ but I was really terrible. I had no self-awareness.”
But that delusional kid who attended Hillfield Strathallan College and eventually found his way to Iron Tiger May Thai (now known as House of Champions) after seeing fighters from the gym batter the opposition on unlicensed shows on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nations reserve kept working until he made it come true.
He won his first four professional fights before suffering a first-round loss to fellow Canadian UFC fighter Hakeem Dawodu, which was followed by a majority draw with Thomas Diagne. He got back into the win column and eventually landed in California, training alongside Faber and the all-star cast at Team Alpha Male, becoming one of the team’s striking coaches and getting a taste of the big show by cornering dozens of fights.
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A first-round finish of Solomon Renfro at CFFC 91 produced a chance to compete on Season 5 of Dana White’s Contender Series (DWCS), where he quickly dispatched Shimon Smotrisky and punched his ticket to the UFC roster, following that up with a memorable knockout win over Gall in his promotional debut at UFC 273.
“I’ve been wanting to fight, man,” Malott said in regard to what has grown into a nearly year-long absence from the Octagon. “I don’t know what the holdup was, but I’m happy to be back.
“I’ve just been sticking to the same thing. I’ve had a lot of training partners getting ready for high-level fights, so I’ve been helping them get ready and making improvements. I feel like I’m way better now than when I made my debut, so I’m more excited to show what I’ve been working on more than anything else.”
While he’s been “sticking to the same thing” in the sense of staying in the gym, helping teammates prepare, and making sure he was ready to go whenever a call came, the setting for those preparations has shifted.
After a number of years in California, Malott and his girlfriend moved back to his home province of Ontario, settling in the Greater Hamilton Area, which allows the talented welterweight the opportunity to work at the region’s best gyms and get focused attention from an outstanding collection of coaches.
“I’m loving my setup in Ontario,” began Malott, who works with Chris Prickett and the team at Niagara Top Team, Kru Alin Halmagean at House of Champions, Andre Grandbois at Ouroboros Jiu-Jitsu, and the assembled talent at the Burlington Training Centre.
“I really feel like I have world-class coaches that are giving me a ton of attention. I feel like I’m the center of attention every practice because it’s either a sparring session where I go against a bunch of other high-level guys, or stuff specifically to improve my game. My coaches are really invested in the fights that I have, the things I need to improve, so I constantly have eyes on me.”
Though he’ll continue to return to California for the occasional visit and make training trips to different locales, the UFC sophomore is happy being back home, excited about his setup, and eager to establish a home base that continues to mean no more than an hour on the QEW or 403 in order to get to training.
While that may sound like an odd “wish list” item when looking for a home, it fits in with the overall approach Malott has always taken when it comes to chasing this dream that has become a career.
“I feel like most people that are really successful in something or achieve a high level in athletics, whatever avenue they want to pursue, it’s not just a thing you do in your life — it really is the biggest part of your life and you have to make that your life,” he said. “My life is built around MMA.
“Every day I do at least a couple things to get myself closer to achieving my goals, and I think it was that, rather than having a plan (that got me here).”
This weekend, not only will Malott finally make the walk to the Octagon for the second time, but he’ll do so alongside his Niagara Top Team teammate Jasmine Jasudavicius, who returns against Gabriella Fernandes. His close friend Andre Fili was supposed to be on the card as well, but an eye injury forced the Team Alpha Male member to withdraw, temporarily delaying what is a “side-quest goal” for the ascending Canadian.
“We’ve got Jas on the card, which is awesome, so everyone is focused on this date,” began Malott, noting that teammate and fellow DWCS alum Anthony Romero was set to fight a week earlier, as well, adding to the intensity in the room at Niagara Top Team. “And then one of my favorite people in the world, one of my best friends in the world, Andre Fili from Alpha Male, was on the card, too.
“We were talking about it a month ago, like, ‘This is some bucket-list-type stuff.’ We’ll be 60 years old one day looking back like, ‘We fought on the same card!’
“That’s the stuff I’m looking forward to looking back on,” he added. “Of course, I have tons of aspirations and goals for the sport, but things like ‘fighting on the same card as your friends and ‘fighting in Toronto’ are the side-quest goals.”
Considering he found a way to turn his prep school dream into reality, don’t be surprised if Malott finds a way to land on a card alongside Fili and other members of Team Alpha Male and logs an appearance on a card at Scotiabank Arena in the not-too-distant future.
And when he does, you know he’s going to cherish every moment of it, just like he does everything else about this dream-come-true life he’s built for himself.
UFC Fight Night: Muniz vs Allen took place live from the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 25, 2023. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
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