UFC 254 featured the debut of two exciting fighters in former Dana White Contender Series competitor Phil Hawes and Australian MMA star Jacob Malkoun. While Malkoun struggled to find opponents in the Australian mixed martial arts scene, he got a quick welcome to the UFC.
Hawes earned the second-fastest debut finish in UFC middleweight history, knocking out Malkoun in just 18 seconds. The record, set by Mark Weird at UFC 38, is 10 seconds.
The action was brief but exciting as Hawes proved his performance in Dana White's Contender Series last month was no fluke. He came out and immediately applied pressure, stalking Malkoun until finally clipping him with a left hand that set up an additional flurry of punches. Malkoun was clipped by several of them before Hawes landed a devastating left-right combo that sent him crumbling to the canvas.
Hawes was excited for his win at Abu Dhabi but remained focus on the bigger picture: winning a world championship. "It feels great but we can't get too excited because we've got bigger things in mind," Hawes said in his post-fight interview. "The bigger picture is to be a world champion."
After training with Jon Jones early in his career, Hawes was considered a promising prospect for the UFC. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite rise to the pressure and struggled a bit early on. However, he now appears calm and ready to live in the moment.
"They can expect to see me rise to the top like I should have been years ago but now I'm working towards it and now I'm ready to be where I belong," Hawes said.