His opponent, Ashmouz, steps into his fourth UFC fight, having picked two wins inside the Octagon, with the only loss in his career coming against Chris Duncan in 2023. All but two of his wins have ended inside the distance, which is something that Salkilldknows he has to watch out for.
“He is quite wild on the feet,” Salkilld said. “That’s always going to be dangerous; he throws a random spin and throws quite powerful, so I’ve got to stay very disciplined on the feet to make sure I don’t get caught with any of those. When it comes to the grappling, I think his takedowns are very technical. He sets them up really well. His submission threat I don’t think is too great from my point of view, so I’m just going tomake sure I scramble like hell when he shoots on me.”
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When he envisions a perfect fight inside Prudential Center on Saturday night, Salkilldimagines another knockout victory, and potentially a Performance of the Night bonus, as well. He is eager to show off more of his skillset, since fans only got to see a small sliver of it back in February. The Dana White’s Contender Series alum wants to have a few exchanges, maybe get some back and forth going between him and Ashmouz, butwants to get the job done inside the 15 minutes.
Above all, Salkilld wants to represent Perth MMA, which is on fire right now, after Jack Della Maddalena defeated Belal Muhammad last month at UFC 315 to become the welterweight champion. Salkilld draws motivation from that moment, and wants to put on for his city, just like Della Maddalena.
“This is one of my goals. I do want to put, not just my country, but my home city, on the map, so I’m doing this for Perth. I can’t wait to make the region much more well known.”