Canadian MMA fans were treated to a heavy dose of action over the weekend as four separate promotions put on shows across the country.
The marquee card was a stacked Unified MMA 44 lineup that kicked off on Friday night, marking the promotion's first appearance in Calgary, Alta.
Headlining the card, Noah Ali (now 11-5-1) won a hard-fought five-round battle against Gabe Sagman (now 7-5) via unanimous decision, capturing the new Unified MMA bantamweight championship along the way.
Coming off more than two years away from competition and navigating a difficult training camp, Ali expressed pride in how he performed and the result.
"I'm impressed actually. I've been off for awhile, lots of injuries this fight camp and I'm just happy I won," Ali said during his post-fight interview inside the cage.
The contest featured action both standing and on the ground across all five rounds.
While Sagman typically excels on the mat, Ali said he felt equally comfortable in that phase of the fight.
"Even when he was on top of me I felt I was giving him more damage. I think I first cut him open from the bottom and then I just kept opening up."
In the co-main event, Tom O'Connor (now 10-2) locked in a rear-naked choke in the third round to stop John Nguyen (now 4-3) in a highly entertaining fight.
Nguyen started strong, but O'Connor said he stuck to his game plan perfectly and is satisfied with the outcome.
"I did what I wanted to do and just came out and employed my game plan, pressure style and mix it up. I didn't want it to be one dimensional. I wanted to strike, grapple, wrestle and put everything together and be a hybrid MMA fighter," O'Connor told MMA Empire.
"I wanted to bring the Big Nasty style, which is pressure style, no quit and let them break before I break. I think everything went good and the crowd in Calgary showed up for me too. He was hometown, but I was essentially hometown as well. It was so good to fight in front of my friends and family again, which I don't get to do very often."
O'Connor did have one issue during the week — he missed weight at 149 pounds for the featherweight matchup.
Despite the weight miss, O'Connor said he intends to compete at both featherweight and lightweight going forward and hopes to return to the Unified MMA cage down the line.
"I really loved fighting for Unified, so as long as opportunities are here I'll continue here," O'Connor said.
"I'm looking to still master 145, but I like both weight classes. Just want to keep improving, keep getting good opportunities, good fights, keep learning, fighting and climbing the ranks."
In what was widely regarded as the fight of the year so far in Canadian MMA, Tim Smith (now 16-12) earned a unanimous decision victory over Curtis Demarce (now 18-17) in a lightweight thriller.
Smith said he needs to sit down and rewatch the bout to fully take in what he and Demarce produced, but expressed relief at being back among the winners.
"It was great to fight in my new city of Calgary where I live now. I've been putting in a lot of work for this fight and I honestly need to go back and rewatch it on Fight Pass and see the fight. I remember bits and pieces of it, little flashbacks, but I have to watch the whole thing to get an overview of it," Smith said in an interview with MMA Empire.
"I'm definitely happy to be back in the win column and happy with all my new coaches and teammates and looking forward to coming back even stronger for my next one."
After suffering a loss to Behrang Yousefi at Unified MMA 41, Smith declared his retirement from MMA.
However, following sweeping changes to his entire camp, Smith concluded he still had much to contribute inside the cage and chose to come back.
"What happened was it was my fourth loss in a row and I kind of felt like I didn't give it my all when I was in there, so I felt like I was getting too old, I was done," Smith explained.
"But in my training I'm keeping up with all the young guys and I love to fight, so I hired Josh Hill from Cerebral Champion. He's my mental performance coach and I did a bunch of work on the mental side of things. Fighting's 90 per cent mental; I always heard that and now I know that to be true. I did that and started working with a professional strength and conditioning coach, Kenny Dusseault from Dusseault Strength and Conditioning. I changed camps and went to Dunamis with Jake Peacock, Kodokan with Randy Chung, and I got all new teammates, all new coaches behind me. It was like a whole new fire was lit beneath me and I know I got lots left in me and I hope I showed that tonight and I'll definitely come back and show that in my next one."
On the same Friday evening, Samourai MMA presented its second show, Samourai MMA 2, in Montreal, Que.
The headliner was brief as Robert Seres (now 5-3) ended Kevin Genereux (now 4-4) just 11 seconds into the bout.
Elsewhere on the card, rising prospect Frederik Dupras secured another first-round stoppage, while Craig Shintani defeated jiu-jitsu specialist Maxime Poulin via submission.
You can see the complete results for Samourai MMA 2 here.
Closing out the triple-header on Friday was Mamba Fight League 10, an all-amateur card featuring five MMA matches.
Headlining the card, Ian Stuart beat Jesse Bull to claim the new Mamba Fight League amateur lightweight title.
The complete results for Mamba Fight League 10 can be found here.
Capping the four-event weekend for Canadian MMA was yet another all-amateur show in MFL 21, held in Montreal.
The card featured 14 MMA bouts in total. The main event saw Quinn Blacksmith crowned the new MFL amateur heavyweight champion after defeating Jeff Fuchs in round two.
The full results for MFL 21 are available here.
