It was a huge night for Canadian MMA tonight at UFC 289 and Mike Malott stole the show with a second-round guillotine finish of Adam Fugitt.

The fight started out in the first round with an extremely high pace. Malott seemed to hurt Fugitt early to the body but he battled through the adversity and pushed forward for the majority of the round. He put Malott on his backfoot for the vast portion of the round. It was Malott's counters, footwork, and wrestling that were the difference makers in that first round.

Then round two comes and it looked like it was going to be more of the same until it wasn't. Malott cracked Fugitt with a two-punch combination that sat him down and then Malott jumped on his neck for the guillotine finish. This was the last fight for the Canadians for the night and he finished out the night undefeated (5-0) for Canadian MMA.

The rest of the Canadian fighters really put on a show, not one was in a boring fight. We started with Kyle Nelson who took on Blake Bilder in a back-and-forth battle in the featherweight division. Nelson's size and experience showed to be the difference maker as he was able to just outwork and outpace Bilder over the course of the entirety of the fight to get his first win since 2019.

Then we moved on to the bantamweight division when Aiemann Zahabi took on Aoriqileng which didn't last long at all. There wasn't a feeling out process from either of these two fighters when they fought as they just went after it as soon as the bell rang. Eventually, Zahabi was able to counter Aoriqileng off of a leg kick and put him away by knockout in the very first round.

In the women's flyweight division, we saw a rising star in Jasmine Jasudavicius get the biggest win of her MMA career after she dominated No. 15 ranked Miranda Maverick from bell to bell, in the grappling, and in striking. She has certainly leveled up since her first loss in the UFC and it has truly shown in a big way and on the biggest stage in front of her home crowd.

We kicked off the main card with “Powerbar” Marc-Andre Barriault bringing the crowd to their feet with a stellar performance against the always tough and durable Eryk Anders. His relentless pace and cardio were hard to match for Anders and he was able to take the unanimous decision just by outworking him throughout the entirety of the fight.

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The Canadian MMA fans were out in full force tonight at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and they couldn't be happier with the outcomes. Their fighters poured their hearts and souls into the performances they put forward for the fans and ended up being perfect on the night. After such an incredible night of fights in the UFC's first time back to Canada in four years, you can certainly expect the UFC will be back to Canada very soon.