Being stationed on the sidelines until this weekend almost meant that Micallef was able to land another premium pairing for his sophomore outing in the Octagon, as he welcomes the highly regarded Elliott back to the fray following his loss to SeokHyeon Ko in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the summer.
“I’ve been watching Oban for a little bit too, so I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is the guy,’” began Micallef when asked about the pairing with Elliot, a fellow DWCS alum who garnered three consecutive wins and a ton of momentum in his first year on the roster before stumbling last time out. “Like I said earlier, there was a longer period where I was sitting on the bench, so I was watching all these welterweights fight, and I was like, ‘I want to fight.’ I got to watch Oban fight a couple of times, and I like to watch them and see how I would fight this guy, just because I’m a student of the game; it’s what I do.
Fighters On The Rise | UFC Perth
“Then when he got put forward to me, I was like, ‘Aw man, I’ve already got a few things I would like to implement in this fight.’”
Armed with ideas and bolstered by the chance to compete in Australia for a second straight fight, the perpetual underdog Micallef is ready to go out this weekend, earn another victory, and give a few more people another chance to recognize that he’s someone to keep close tabs on in the talent-rich welterweight division.
Not that he’s bothered by being underrated for the time being.
“This is how my career has been the whole time,” he said with a laugh. “If you’ve watched my career coming up through the ranks, I was always the underdog, always the overlooked kid: not enough experience, fighting a guy with double, triple, quadruple the fights, and here I am still doing that; still beating guys, still doing my thing.