Preview: UFC 273 Prelims

Welterweights

NR | Mike Malott (7-1-1, 0-0 UFC) vs. NR | Mickey Gall (7-4, 6-4 UFC)

BETUS ODDS: Malott (-200), Gall (+160)

What a strange career it has been for Gall. He won the 2016 sweepstakes to become Phil “CM Punk” Brooks’ first UFC opponent, seemingly by being the first man to ask. Gall threw down the challenge after winning his professional debut with UFC President Dana White in attendance, setting in motion a series of events that eventually led to his beating Brooks by first-round submission at UFC 203. From there, Gall seemed to temporarily have the ability to determine his own destiny, calling his next shot with a win against Sage Northcutt, but after losing a 2017 bout to Randy Brown, he has mostly been an afterthought. He has developed into a solid enough fighter but one with a clear ceiling at this point. He is a technically strong grappler but not an imposing enough athlete to reliably get to that part of his game, and while his striking is much-improved, it relies on big single shots. Gall is still improving, so there is the hope that he can find even more reliable footing on the UFC roster, but this is a big spot as he attempts to turn back a newcomer in Malott.



Canada’s Malott has had a spotty professional record thus far, making his pro debut all the way back in 2011, with spots in the World Series of Fighting and Bellator MMA. However, he has only made it to the cage nine times over the course of that decade-plus. “Proper” has made his last two performances count; in his only two outings since 2017, Malott submitted Solomon Renfro and Shimon Smotritsky in roughly two and a half minutes combined. That little recent cage time does at least suggest that Malott is capable of holding his own and likely overpowering Gall if this fight goes to the mat, though it is unclear how much either man will force it there, in part because the dynamic on the feet is somewhat hard to parse. Malott figures to be the harder hitter but looks hittable in his own right and has not forced the pace much in his older bouts. The bet is that Gall is content to win a middling striking match and that neither man feels forced to take this to the ground, though this is among the more difficult fights to make heads or tails of, mostly due to the unanswered questions on Malott’s end in his recent appearances. This is a coinflip, but the pick is Gall via decision.

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