Malcolm Wellmaker on “absolutely dumb assumption” that informed UFC 322 loss

Malcolm Wellmaker recently suffered a notable setback at UFC 322 as he lost to an underdog, short-notice opponent, and Wellmaker has reflected on the errors that led to that. Wellmaker mentioned that he knew on 4 or 5 pm on Thursday, he would be fighting Ethyn Ewing at 145 pounds instead of the initially scheduled Cody Haddon for the Saturday, November 15th card.

During an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, when asked if he watched film on Ethyn Ewing and if did the requisite research on his newly booked adversary for the Madison Square Garden matchup, Wellmaker said,

“Oh, man. I hate even admitting this but the full extent of my research was I looked him up. I saw his record, 8-2, seven knockouts, obviously he’s a striker. The only clip I watched of [Ethyn Ewing] was the highlight of him when he knocked out Billy Brand the week before, and that was it. That was all of the knowledge that I went into the fight with. Foolishly obviously.”

Malcolm Wellmaker thought UFC was re-booking him against someone not on his level: “They want their prospects to keep knocking folks out”

When Ariel Helwani pointedly asked Wellmaker if he felt like it was cockiness on his part that played into that decision-making to not watch more ample amounts of fight footage of Ewing, Malcolm Wellmaker responded,

“Let me tell you, it wasn’t; cockiness, I don’t think so much of. It was foolishness because I truly believed  that the matchup they were going to give me was a ‘the show must go on’ kind of matchup. Like I honestly thought they were taking care of me which is dumb and stupid looking back but I’m new to the game, bro…. They want their prospects to keep knocking folks out.”

“So they must be throwing me a guy that’s a good striker but not on my level. Just an absolutely dumb assumption to go into the fight with. Obviously, I got a rude awakening shortly after the bell rang in the first round.”