When they announced that 26-year-old Quillan Salkilld would be headlining a UFC Fight Night card at the Meta Apex, the first thought that came to mind was … why? You don’t pluck Schmigadoon! off Broadway to play at a smaller house in New York, so why make a young burgeoning star, fresh off his homecoming knockout of Beneil Dariush at a sold-out arena in his native Australia, fight in front of veritable dozens?
And why on earth was he booked against Poland’s Mateusz Gamrot, a dealer of slow deaths who dons a wrestling singlet with a diabolical sense of purpose? It turns out it’s because, well, Salkilld wanted it that way.
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“I said yes, before my manager even finished,” Salkilld told Uncrowned. “When she called me up and told me this fight’s on, before she even finished her sentence I was saying yes, yes, yes.
“It doesn’t really phase me where I fight. I just wanted this fight and it being a main event is f***ing wicked. Main eventing at the Apex is on par with being, like, a co-main or being at the high end of the main card or a massive pay-per-view, if not better. I’d actually kind of prefer this than fighting on, say, the main card on like a pay-per-view.”
The last time Salkilld was in Las Vegas it was to showcase his wares on the Contender Series in 2024, when he faced the Missourian fighter Gauge Young at the very same Apex. He needed all three rounds to get his hand raised that night, which turned out to be a bit of a red herring. In all but one of Salkilld’s five official bouts in the UFC subsequently, he hasn’t needed judges at all.
In fact, in four of those fights – including his last one against the veteran Dariush – he didn’t even need a second round. The sample size is small, but early reports are that Salkilld’s a jugular snatcher, a big moment chaser who fights with a sense of unchecked urgency. He’s the kind of fighter UFC matchmakers traditionally love, because he has demonstrated that, the higher the stakes, the more emphatic the finish.
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It’s been a blur of an opening salvo for the mustachioed Salkilld, who has been fighting in the UFC for only 18 months. Now he’s in his first main event, and a victory could deliver him near the top of the lightweight division. As far as meteoric rises go, his has a bright fiery tail, which can be a little dangerous for a young phenom.
As his reputation grows, so do the expectations.
“I just go out there and focus on doing my thing,” he said. “I think I’m good at doing that. I think maybe it’s the Aussie mindset of being unserious in serious situations. So I’m good at, when there’s these big high-pressure moments, just playing it cool and not really caring about it and having fun.”
Some people’s idea of fun might be another person’s nightmare.
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After he beat Dariush in May, Salkilld called out Gamrot through an act of his own free will. The same Gamrot who took Esteban Ribovics down four times and kept him in his custody for nearly seven minutes before finishing him with an arm-triangle choke in the second. The same Gamrot who took down Ludovit Klein six times and held him a helpless captive on the ground for long minutes at a time.
The same Gamrot who beat Arman Tsarukyan, who sits right now as one of the top contenders in the division.
“Well, in that moment it made sense,” Salkilld said of the call out. “[Gamrot] was coming off a win [against Ribovics] a few weeks prior to my win, and there were a few other lightweights that were matched up, and he’s someone I’ve always wanted to fight. He’s a tough fight.”
(It should be noted that he said this as if calling for potentially bad stylistic matchups is simply the convention).
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“I mean, I’m not going to call out anyone I think is going to be easy. I’m no p****. I want these hard fights. I’m not looking to cherry-pick my way to the top. I want these fights that are going to put respect on my name.”
If anything, Salkilld has made his decision-making look as easy as he has his fights. In his official UFC debut, he knocked out poor Anshul Jubli in 19 seconds, which sent his countrymen in Sydney into a frenzy. Though Yanal Ashmouv was able to last 15 minutes with Salkilld, it wasn’t what you might call an “enjoyable experience.” If anything, it looked more like a flex to show off his versatility, as Salkilld took the Israeli fighter down eight times and jammed-up his offensive gears.
Quillan Salkilld has proven to be an adept finisher in the UFC. (Photo by Ed Mulholland/Zuffa LLC)
(Ed Mulholland via Getty Images)
Perhaps Salkilld’s best showing to date was his victory over Nasrat Haqparast at UFC 321 last October, a fight he took on just 10 days’ notice. Salkilld landed a walk-off head kick midway through the first round that signaled his true arrival as a player in the lightweight division.
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He was just 25 at the time.
“I feel younger than I am actually,” he said. “I feel very immature – especially with my humor and the way I act sometimes, I find I’m very childish.”
(It should be noted he said this with no sense of revelation; it’s a lived-in understanding).
“But yeah, in terms of all this stuff, being in the UFC and getting a bit of a limelight and getting these big opportunities and these high-pressure moments is something I’ve always envisioned. It’s something I’ve always tried to manifest coming up since even before I started training, back when I just was just thinking about it.
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“I’ve been pretty much preparing for these moments for the past eight years and now that it’s coming to fruition, it just feels normal to me.”
Heading into the fight with Gamrot, Salkilld is for the first time a small betting favorite (rather than a massive one). It’s not the most favorable set-up, fighting 9,500 miles away from home in the UFC’s above-ground Vegas lair against a guy who suffocates opponents and saps of them of their will, but it’s the fight Salkilld manifested.
And that manifestation goes beyond the fight itself. It stretches into the wee hours of the night in the Nevada desert.
“My old man is over with me, and he brought over some classic Australian Bundaberg rum, which I plan on opening and finishing out within five minutes [of beating Gamrot] before hitting the town and letting Vegas take me,” he said.
“That’s what I envision.”
